ignoratio elenchi
by ShadowsTakeAll
Summary: Two years after Jane's disappearance, Maura is kidnapped. Can the team track down their missing colleagues or will The Surgeon finally complete his collection?
1. Chapter 1

**So, hey. I'm Shadows. I've been writing fanfic for a few years, but I still get a bit nervous when I start writing for a new fandom. But this week I rewatched the first four seasons of R&amp;I and then this little plot bunny sank its teeth in and there was really nothing that could be done. You know how it is.**

**This will only be a short fic - ten chapters in total, including the epilogue. ****I should also add some warnings: this is a dark fic; it deals with sensitive subjects and there are instances of violence, so read with caution. Note: t****his story is a bit AH. It starts before season one of the show, and the main difference to note is that _Jane and Maura have never met_. Other than that, everything else should become clear throughout the fic.**

**I've pre-written the story, so I can update as often as you guys want. I'm not sure how well this will be received, and I may have to up the rating to an M at some point, but let's just see how it goes for now. If you like this first chapter, please follow, favorite, and/or review. I'd love to hear what you think.**

**And without further ado, here we go...**

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**6:52 pm.**

The soft sound of classical music was Maura Isles' only companion on her drive home from work on Monday night. Although it wasn't late, the streets were all deserted, a fact that would make a more paranoid person suspicious. Even Maura was starting to get worried, her usually quiet mind swirling with uncertainty and anxiety. As the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts she prided herself on her ability to think clearly and rationally, but that very same ability meant that she was unable to quell her worries now. Her mind was full of statistics – the crime rate in Boston, the likelihood of a carjacking on such an empty street, the total victim tally for Boston's last serial killer – and not a single one provided her any kind of relief.

She was on the verge of calling her friend Frankie just to have his voice to keep her company when she noticed a figure up ahead. She slowed down, her foot hovering above the brake as she cruised past the late-night jogger, and a small smile slipped across her face. Two years ago the streets of Boston had been thrown into a frenzy in the wake of the serial killer who called himself The Surgeon – a name that suited him well given the clinical manner in which he tortured and eventually killed his victims. For months everyone had been too scared to even step foot outside of their homes after the sun went down, and now Maura found herself reminded of the fact that the chaos was over. Peace hadn't been restored so much as stumbled upon – since The Surgeon had never been caught and had simply stopped being active – but the citizens of Boston were no longer scared to be outside after dark.

Maura watched the jogger in the rear-view mirror, noting that the woman looked strangely dishevelled, the way Sergeant Korsak had looked during BPD's Wellness Week after being dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn to lead that day's morning jog. Just as she was about to turn her attention back to the road ahead of her, Maura watched as the woman stumbled, her foot getting caught on a crack in the sidewalk. In the space of a second the woman was on the ground, and in another second Maura had pulled her car over to the curb and was reaching for the door handle.

"Excuse me, miss?" Maura called as she approached, her keys in one hand and her phone in the other, ready to call 911 if her own expertise proved insufficient.

The other woman didn't look up until Maura was only a few feet away, and then Maura was startled by the intensity in the other woman's gaze. Then the stranger blinked, the intensity fading from her eyes and a sheepish grin playing around the corners of her mouth.

"Are you okay?" Maura asked, coming to a stop a few paces away and offering the woman what she hoped was a friendly smile. As Frankie was always telling her, Maura's people skills left a lot to be desired; more often than not her attempts to help would be mistaken for arrogance, and she'd learned the hard way that not everybody wanted her help.

"I'm fine," the woman said, her voice surprisingly low and slightly husky. The smile playing on her lips blossomed then, embarrassment plain on every inch of her face.

"Here," Maura said, tucking her phone and keys into the pocket of her jacket and then reaching out to help the stranger to her feet.

"Thanks." For a moment the other woman smiled at her, but then it turned into a grimace as her leg buckled beneath her.

Without thinking Maura reached out to catch her, steadying her just in time. "I'm a doctor," she offered, still holding onto the other woman for fear of letting her fall. "I could take a look at your leg, if you wanted."

The stranger hesitated for a second, and then winced as she tried to put weight on her injured leg. "I think it's my ankle," she admitted. "But it's probably just a sprain. I've had worse."

Maura bit her lip, torn between her desire to help this stranger and the knowledge that she was now almost running late to meet Frankie. The former won out and she smiled again, finding herself quickly warming up to the stranger; there was something strangely vulnerable about her, even though her entire manner was self-assured and confident.

"I've got a first aid kit in my car," Maura said, gesturing behind her. The stranger followed her gaze, glanced down at her own injured leg, and then shrugged.

"If you're sure it wouldn't be any trouble," she said. "I don't want to bother you."

"It's not a bother," Maura assured her, but the effect of her words was ruined slightly as she glanced at her watch. She looked back up at the stranger. "Just sit down on the sidewalk for a minute and I'll have a look at it."

Five minutes later Maura had bandaged up the stranger's ankle, which did only seem to be sprained.

"Are you going to be all right to get home?" Maura asked as she packed up her first aid kit, snapping the locks closed on the container.

The stranger laughed, a sound that caught Maura off-guard although she couldn't figure out why. "That's my house right there, actually," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder to indicate the house behind her.

"Oh." Maura chuckled, straightening up and tucking the first aid kit under her arm. "Well, in my professional opinion I think you can manage that."

They shared a laugh for a moment, and then the stranger gingerly put weight on her injured ankle. "Thank you so much for this," she said, gesturing to the bandage. She hesitated, and then asked, "Do you want to come in for tea or coffee? It's the least I could do."

Maura glanced at her watch again, and then at her car, and came to a decision. She would have to reschedule with Frankie; the offer of tea was far too enticing to pass up. "Tea would be lovely," she said, and the stranger smiled before leading the way inside.

For what it's worth, the tea did taste lovely – but it was the last thing Maura remembered before she slipped into absolute blackness.

X.X.X.X.X

**7:19 pm.**

It was after seven, and that meant that Maura Isles, queen of punctuality, was officially late. Frankie stood up and glanced around the room, although he wasn't expecting it to give him any answers. He'd let himself in twenty minutes ago, having promised Maura that he'd help her set up her new table tonight, and there had been no sign of the Medical Examiner. The only other living thing in the house was Bass, her tortoise, who was as companionable as an un-caffeinated Sergeant Korsak.

"Come on, Maura," Frankie muttered, dialling her number for the third time. "Where are you?"

There was no answer, but by this point Frankie wasn't expecting one. He started running through the day in his mind, tracking every interaction he'd had with Maura. He'd only spoken to her a couple of times, since they weren't working on any active cases together and she'd been down in the morgue for most of the day, but he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary about her. Although Frankie had only been a detective for a few months he was still one of the best and brightest, and he liked to think that he would have noticed if one of his colleagues was acting suspiciously at all.

And since she hadn't been acting strangely at work, it meant that something must have come up between then and now. Maura was never late for anything, and Frankie shuddered to think what would have come up that would mean she couldn't even answer her phone. From previous experience he knew that there was no sense in worrying about someone being late… unless they didn't answer their phone. Then there was cause for concern.

As he was deciding what his next move should be, Frankie's cell went off. The noise seemed too loud in the empty house and he snatched it up, trying not to notice that his hand was shaking. "Hey Korsak," he said, starting to walk around the house, not sure what he was looking for but knowing he needed to find some indication as to why Maura wouldn't be here now. "How's it going?"

"Have you heard from Dr Isles recently?" Korsak asked without preamble, completely ignoring Frankie's question. Somehow he didn't mind.

"Not since this afternoon," Frankie replied, coming to a stop in the kitchen. There was a pile of unread mail on the counter, but none of it looked suspicious; it was all bills and letters from penpals and copies of articles from scientific journals. "Why? What's going on?"

"I haven't been able to get a hold of her," Korsak said, and Frankie was alarmed to hear a note of unease in his voice. It wasn't often that Korsak let anything slip through his calm exterior, and it worried Frankie that there was something slipping through the cracks now.

"How long's she been MIA?" Frankie asked, trying to switch his mind into detective mode. It was always harder to do so when someone he knew was involved, but if he let his emotions get the better of him he'd be no help to Korsak – or to Maura.

"She left work at six. I tried to call her at seven, and there was no response. I've tried to call her since then, and so has Frost. She hasn't answered."

Frankie ran a hand through his hair, hating the thoughts that were going through his mind. But he didn't have to say what he was thinking; his silence said it all.

"It's not him, Frankie," Korsak said, a rare note of gentleness in his tone.

"We don't know that," Frankie countered, knowing he was playing devil's advocate but also knowing that _somebody_ had to. "We never caught him, remember? For all we know he's still out there, and after what he did to -"

"It's not the same," Korsak interrupted, the gentleness replaced by firmness now. "I know what happened to Jane was… it was hard on all of us. But this isn't the same. We don't know that Maura's even in trouble. And if she is, we'll find out what it is, and we'll deal with it." He paused, his silence laden with meaning, and then he said, "We'll get her back, Frankie."

As much as Frankie wanted to believe his words, he couldn't. Because Sergeant Korsak had said the same thing two years ago about a different girl, and they never did get her back.

X.X.X.X.X

**7:26 pm.**

Maura's senses came back in bits and pieces. First she was aware of a vague pressure around her wrists and ankles, and then of a dull pain behind her eyes, and finally of a dim dripping sound behind her. When she finally forced herself to open her eyes she did a double-take, not understanding where she was or how she got here. It seemed to be some kind of basement, and once that fact registered, two other realizations came to her in quick succession. The first was that she was tied to a chair, and the second was that she wasn't alone.

The stranger she'd stopped to help was across from her, sitting backwards on a chair with her arms resting on the back. She looked absurdly casual given the situation, and that more than anything made Maura uneasy. She'd dealt with desperate criminals before, with ordinary people driven to do awful things, but this stranger wasn't like that. She wasn't desperate; she was calculating. She was watching Maura like she was assessing her for weaknesses, like she was waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Maura had seen this look in people's eyes before, and it was usually as they were being sentenced to life in prison for murder.

"Who are you?" Maura asked, her voice croaky and her throat dry. She swallowed, not taking her eyes off the stranger, trying to steady her heart.

The other woman didn't answer. Instead she stood up, tapped her palm against the back of the chair a couple of times, and then said, "Doctor Maura Isles. Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Daughter of Paddy Doyle and Hope Martin." She paused here, crossed her arms, and then continued. "I know who you are, Dr Isles. I know what you've done. I know where you live, and what you eat for breakfast, and where you take your tortoise to the vet. I've been watching you."

Maura swallowed again, her heart pounding against her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. She'd never been this terrified, but some part of her mind wouldn't let her fall completely into panic. She needed to stay calm or she wouldn't have a chance. "I seem to be at a disadvantage then," she said slowly, hoping her fear wasn't coloring her voice. "You know everything about me, but I don't even know your name, Mrs…"

The stranger smirked, shoving the chair out of the way and taking a step toward Maura. The smirk turned into a smile, but there was nothing warm or friendly about it. That was the smile of a predator moving in for the kill. "Actually," the stranger said smoothly, "it's _Detective._"

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**Reviews are like word candy for me so please don't forget to let me know if you're enjoying this.**

**I'll see you all next time, whenever that may be.**

**#ShadowsOut**


	2. Chapter 2

**I was blown away by the reaction to the first chapter; thank you to everyone who followed, favorited, and most of all reviewed last chapter. At this point I would like to confess my utter ignorance of police procedure and Boston geography so if anything seems strange I promise it's not a clue, it's a mistake; I hope you'll forgive any errors you come across. And you can all rest easy because no, this is not a Maura/Frankie fic. They're friends and colleagues, and I promise that's all.**

**I think that's about everything I have to say for now. I hope you all enjoy the next chapter, and don't forget to share your thoughts in the reviews. Here you go.**

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**8:14 pm.**

"Come _on_," Korsak muttered impatiently, tossing another empty coffee cup into the trash can and looking around at the others. Both Frankie and Frost were at their computers, looking through current cases and everything they could find of Maura's schedule. "There has to be something we've missed. What do we have?"

Frankie and Frost shared a look, both unwilling to tell their superior that they had absolutely no leads. After a quick stare-down, Frankie balked. Giving Frost a pointed glare, he turned to Korsak and said, "We know Maura left the building at six. She took her own car, and as far as anyone knows she was going straight home." He cleared his throat, hoping Frost would step in, but everyone was silent. "She was meant to meet me at her place at seven, but she never showed up," Frankie went on reluctantly. "There aren't any high-profile or controversial cases going on at the moment, so she's mostly been working on more mundane things."

"Mundane?" Korsak interrupted, glancing between Frankie and Frost.

"Non-homicide cases," Frost explained. "You know, suicides, accidents, that kind of thing."

"The kind of thing that probably wouldn't get her kidnapped," Korsak said, nodding. "Anything else?"

"Her phone's off, so we can't track it by GPS," Frost offered, and Frankie breathed a sigh of relief now that he was out of the spotlight. "We've got a BOLO out on her car but so far nothing's come of it."

"So we have nothing," Korsak summarized. When nobody contradicted him, he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. "We have nothing," he murmured again, and in the silence that followed their thoughts all turned to the events of two years ago.

This time Frankie took it upon himself to change the subject. "She's only been missing for an hour," he pointed out. "That means that if something did happen to her, we've still got time to find her."

"What do you mean, 'if'?" Frost asked, frowning.

"She might have just turned her phone off," Frankie said. "It's unlikely, but it's possible."

"Right." Frost tapped a few keys, not typing anything, just thinking. Then he stood up and walked over to the board they'd been using to brainstorm. There wasn't much on it, just a picture of Maura and some lines connecting her to a few things – an article about her in the local paper, a picture of her house, a list of cases she'd worked on recently. His eyes skimmed over all of it, and then he sighed. "And we're sure she wasn't acting weird?" he asked, turning back to his colleagues. "She didn't mention anything that might have indicated that something was wrong?"

Frankie leaned back in his chair, thinking, and then he shook his head. "Nothing that I can think of," he said. "We didn't talk much today, but seemed like she is every day. You know, friendly enough but kind of distant."

"I only understood about half of what she was saying," Frost added with a chuckle, "so she can't have been too troubled."

"What if -" Korsak started, but at that moment a loud beep interrupted his words. He glanced around the room, a mildly indignant expression on his face.

Frost, however, leapt into action, hurrying back to his computer and surveying the screen without even bothering to sit down. His eyes lit up and he was reaching for his jacket before he'd even finished his sentence. "The BOLO came back on Maura's car," he said. "We've got an address."

X.X.X.X.X

**8:17 pm.**

"So you're still not going to tell me your name?" Maura shifted in her seat, trying to get a better look at what the detective was doing. But as soon as the other woman moved, Maura suddenly wished she hadn't. The detective had been standing by a table, sorting through something, and Maura had forced herself to believe that it was simply documents or photographs. But when the detective moved to the side, Maura got a clear view of the array of scalpels spread out on the table.

"You don't need to know it," the detective responded, picking up the closest scalpel and turning it over in her hand. The light glinted off the wickedly sharp edge of it, and Maura flinched, an involuntary action in response to an alarming stimulus. And something that she hoped the detective hadn't noticed. Any sign of weakness would only spur her captor on.

Silence fell again, and while the detective went back to organizing the scalpels, Maura used the time to try to figure out anything she could about the other woman. She watched her carefully, adding up the facts, trying to piece together a picture of the strange woman.

_Scars on both palms, unlikely to be self-inflicted, not recent. Likely one to two years old._

_Dark circles under the eyes, likely due to lack of sleep and/or excessive stress._

_Signs of malnourishment but nothing requiring immediate medical intervention._

_Left-handed, but hesitance seems indicative of a past injury, not entirely healed._

The detective turned to face her again, and Maura braced herself, not sure what she was expecting but knowing it couldn't be good. But the detective didn't say anything; her eyes skimmed over Maura, taking in the ropes holding her to the chair and – to Maura's embarrassment – the fear that was plain on her face. Then the detective turned away again, and Maura switched her focus from physical signs to behavioral ones.

_Clear agitation and signs of paranoia. Possible persecutory delusions._

_Professional handling of the scalpels indicates some level of medical training._

_Hesitation indicates unfamiliarity with the situation. Likely a first-time offender._

"Why are you doing that?" Maura asked, surprising herself. It surprised the detective even more, because she spun around, scalpel in hand and eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Doing what?" Her voice was gruff, unfriendly, but Maura couldn't sense any real malice in it. She added this to her list of observations, although the significance eluded her at the moment.

"You keep reaching for your belt," Maura pointed out. "Like you're checking that something's there." She paused, something clicking in her mind. "Or reaching for something that used to be there."

"Not that it matters," the detective said, narrowing her eyes even further, "but that's where I used to keep my gun."

The past tense tripped Maura up. It sounded like the detective hadn't carried a gun for a while, but she couldn't figure out why. Maybe the detective had resigned, or been fired. Or maybe something else had happened to her.

"Used to?" Maura echoed, deliberately keeping her voice even, not wanting to risk setting the detective off. She didn't know how unstable her captor was, and she didn't want to do anything to anger her. "Why don't you carry it anymore?"

The detective didn't answer, but she also didn't turn away. She just kept watching Maura, a faint hint of surprise on her face, but almost entirely masked by… _nothing_. Her expression was carefully neutral, not giving anything away. That is, when her eyes weren't darting anxiously around the room.

"Did someone take it from you?" Maura pressed, well aware that she was going down a dangerous path, but she hoped that if she got the stranger to open up she might be able to talk her out of whatever it is that she was planning on doing. "Is that why you don't carry it anymore?"

The detective stiffened, and then, to Maura's surprise, she answered. "Yes."

The word was so quiet that Maura almost missed it, but she didn't miss the hidden vulnerability in it. She ran through the evidence again in her mind, and then she said softly, "The person who took your gun… did they hurt you?"

For a moment there was silence, and then the detective tightened her grip on the scalpel, exhaled sharply, and said, "He didn't have a choice."

This was the closest the stranger had come to opening up, and Maura stayed quiet for a moment while she tried to decide how to use this information. Before she could think of what to say, the detective set the scalpel down on the table and picked up another one, and as she held that one up the sleeves of her jacket slid down – revealing thin scars encircling both wrists. Something nudged at the edge of Maura's mind, but she didn't want to consider it. She couldn't. It was too awful to even contemplate.

"Did someone do that to you?" Maura asked, dipping her head to indicate the scars on the stranger's wrists.

The detective paled and shook her sleeves back down, but Maura could tell she was unsettled. And suddenly she knew what her game plan was going to be.

"Can you tell me who did this to you?" Maura had to fight to keep her voice under control now, because she was beginning to get an idea of what the stranger was like – someone volatile, unstable, possibly delusional. Someone whose temper could flare up in a second and end up getting someone hurt.

Without answering, the detective dragged the chair back in front of Maura and sat down on it, backwards again, a scalpel still in her hand. She was looking at the instrument, not at Maura, which told the medical examiner that she'd struck a nerve.

"If you're in trouble, I know people who can help," Maura offered. "Just let me go, and I can take you to them."

The detective raised her eyebrows, incredulity written on her face. "You think you can help?" she scoffed. "You really think anything you say is going to _help_?"

"Please," Maura said, her voice shaking despite how hard she was trying to keep it level. "If you just let me go, I can take you to the station. My friends are there. They're good people, and they can help find whoever did this to you."

"Your friends," the detective repeated, eyebrows still raised, disdain dripping from her words.

"Yes," Maura said, trying to keep the stranger engaged, to keep her talking… to stop her from using those scalpels. "They're detectives, and they can -"

"They can what, Dr Isles?" the stranger cut in. "Arrest me for kidnapping the Chief Medical Examiner?"

"They won't," Maura said quickly, although she knew she couldn't guarantee that. "I won't press charges, I swear. We just want to help."

The detective snorted, and Maura's heart fell. Maybe this wasn't the way to get through to her after all.

"And if you don't let me go, they'll find me," she said, careful not to make it sound like a threat. If she made the detective feel threatened, she knew the other woman would get defensive – and likely dangerous. "They're probably already looking for me."

"Oh, I'm sure they are," the detective smirked. "And I'm sure they'll like the clues I left them."

"Clues?" Maura echoed. Again, she realized that this woman wasn't desperate – she was determined. She'd planned this, every bit of it, and that meant she probably wasn't going to stop. But still, Maura couldn't stop trying. There was more to the story, and she just had to find out what it was.

Again the detective didn't answer, but for a split second she did look troubled. Then she shook her head slightly, as if to clear it, and smiled. "Let your friends look for you," she said, her voice catching ever so slightly on the word _friends_. "I covered my tracks. They're gonna have a hell of a time finding you."

"They'll find me," Maura insisted, but the tremble in her voice did nothing to help her argument.

The detective laughed, and then she held her arms up so that her sleeves fell back down, revealing the scars on her hands and wrists. "Like they found me?" she asked scathingly, the challenge clear in her voice.

And suddenly all the pieces fell into place. The scars, the paranoia, the fact that she called herself a detective. Maura knew who this was, but she couldn't believe it.

Because sitting in front of her was Detective Jane Rizzoli, who'd been missing for two years. _Presumed dead, _Maura was told when she started working at BPD a year ago.

But the person in front of her was very much alive… and intent on making sure that Maura herself would soon be dead.

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**Still with me?**

**Oh and by the way, something someone said in the comments got me thinking, and that got me writing, and well... I know it's early days yet, but would any of you guys be interested in reading another R&amp;I fic by me? It'll have the same kind of dark feel but a different storyline, and I can start publishing that as soon as I finish with this one, if anyone's interested.**

**So read, review, you know the drill. See you next time!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Well okay then. You guys are eager. Thank you all so, so much for your reviews. I'm glad so many people are enjoying the story and sticking with it. In response to 'chris', who asked if there will have a happy end: I don't really do happy endings, especially for fics this dark to begin with. So I can't make any guarantees, but I do usually give warnings for major character deaths, violence, and other potentially upsetting things like that. I'll give more of a heads-up as we get into darker territory, but, again, no guarantees on the outcome of the story. Besides, where's the fun if I tell you how it's going to end? ;)**

**Anyway. Enough of me rambling on. Here's what you all came for.**

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**8:43 pm.**

When Detective Rizzoli went missing she'd been hot on the heels of Charles Hoyt, a serial killer who called himself The Surgeon. She'd left the station one day after work and then simply vanished. Her life had been left exactly as it was – no sign of anyone breaking into her apartment, no unusual activity on her bank account, nothing to indicate that anything had happened to her. For all intents and purposes she had simply ceased to exist.

Maura had joined BPD a year after Jane had disappeared, and even then it had been hard. The wounds left by Jane's disappearance were still raw, and nobody on the team wanted to talk about her. All Maura was told was that Jane had been an amazing detective, and that they suspected Hoyt had gotten to her. She was presumed dead, but Maura knew that the others in the team were still looking for her. Korsak had been her partner at the time and seemed to blame himself for her disappearance, and Maura often came across him late at night, holed up at his desk and feverishly poring through old case files. She knew Frankie was Jane's brother, and that Frost had been her friend, and that the whole case had hit home for all of them. Losing one of their own was always hard, and it was even worse when they couldn't bring the killer to justice – if there had even been a killer to begin with.

Nobody had seemed to want to talk about it, so Maura hadn't pried. She knew there was nothing she could do to help. Her speciality was bodies, and Jane's had never been recovered. And now it was painfully obvious why.

"It was Hoyt, wasn't it?" Maura asked, breaking a silence that had stretched on for far too long.

Jane spun to face her, eyes flashing and hand clenched on the edge of the table. "What do you know about Hoyt?"

Maura didn't answer right away. She just looked at Jane, trying to size her up. Her voice was ragged, with something almost like pain. It seemed that nobody wanted to talk about Jane's disappearance, not even the woman herself. But if Maura didn't know what had happened to her, she couldn't determine the best course of action. She had to keep digging.

"I know that you were chasing a serial killer." She waited for a moment, letting those words sink in, and they didn't seem to provoke any kind of negative reaction in Jane; nor did Jane seem surprised that Maura had figured out who she was. Taking that as a good sign, Maura went on. "You left the station one day and you never came back."

Jane let out a bitter laugh, unclenching her hand and flexing her fingers. She didn't say anything, didn't give any kind of confirmation or denial. Maura glanced at her hand, calculating.

"Distal radius fracture," she commented softly, causing Jane to look over at her in surprise.

The detective clenched her hand again, but Maura was quick enough to catch a fleeting glimpse of pain in her eyes. It was hidden quickly, and then she stretched her hand, laying it flat on the table, and her eyes fell on the scar in the center of her hand.

"It never healed properly, did it?" Maura asked. "That's because you should have gone to a hospital. A fracture like that can be severe enough to require surgery." She hesitated for a second, and then said, "He did that to you, didn't he? Hoyt?"

This time when Jane clenched her hand it was around a scalpel, and before Maura could even react she felt cold metal pressing against her throat. She'd barely been aware of Jane moving, but suddenly she was right in front of her.

"Don't say his name," the detective snarled, her face inches away from Maura's, her breath hot against Maura's cheek.

Biting back a startled sob, Maura shook her head. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm sorry."

As quickly as the anger had come, it faded. Jane stepped back, still holding the scalpel, but she was holding it loosely, no sign that she intended to use it. Yet. For a second she looked at Maura with some indecipherable emotion in her eyes, something soft and undeniably human, but then she turned away without saying anything.

It took another few minutes for Maura to work up the courage to speak again, and this time she tried to take a more gentle approach. It was hard to tell what would cause Jane to lash out again, but if Maura didn't do something soon she shuddered to think what the detective would do with those scalpels.

"You know, there was a recent study done on Stockholm Syndrome in the Journal of -" Maura began.

"Shut it," Jane snapped, pointing the scalpel at her, and Maura fell silent at once. "He didn't _Stockholm_ me, Dr Isles."

Although Maura's specialty was medicine, she'd studied so many subjects that there was hardly a field in which she didn't feel comfortable. And now she forced herself to step out of the victim mentality she was quickly falling into and focus on Jane's facial expression. There was no asymmetry, no waver in her voice, no tell-tale twitch of any muscles or a glance away. As far as Maura could tell, Jane was telling the truth.

"So you're doing this of your own free will?" Maura questioned, but she didn't think she wanted to hear the answer. From what Maura had heard around the station, Jane Rizzoli was nothing less than a hero. Awards for bravery, commendations from her superiors, an entire team who went out of their way to try to find her when she went missing. There was nothing in anything Maura had heard or read that suggested Jane would be capable of doing something like this. Which meant that either the other detectives had badly misjudged her, or that something had happened in the past two years to drive her to this.

Jane tapped her nose to indicate a correct answer, and then smiled. "I know you're trying to psychoanalyze me," she said with a careless shrug, leaning against the table. "Go ahead. It won't do you any good."

"They think you're a hero, you know," Maura said after a moment, and she braced herself for the backlash. But Jane didn't react, aside from narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. Encouraged, Maura continued. "Everyone at the station thinks you died trying to track down Hoyt."

This got a reaction, but not the one Maura had been expecting. Jane closed her eyes for a second, as if she was deep in thought, and then she opened them and fixed her gaze on Maura. "I did try to track him down," she said. "But I didn't need to. He found me."

"And he kidnapped you," Maura said. This time she was prepared for the backlash, but that didn't make it any less terrifying. In an instant Jane had crossed the space between them, but this time Maura found the scalpel pressed against her hand rather than her neck. As unsettling as that was, it was also a good sign; Jane wasn't about to inflict any fatal wounds. This was more intimidation than execution, and that meant that Maura still had time. Biting her lip, Maura took a chance and said, "You know that's what happened, Jane. Hoyt kidnapped you." She hesitated, and then asked, "Is that where you've been all this time?"

Jane hesitated, adjusting her grip on the scalpel. She stayed silent for so long that Maura thought she wasn't going to answer, but finally she stepped back, lowered her gaze, and asked, "How long have I been gone?"

Maura was so stunned by the change in her manner that she didn't answer straight away.

"_How_ – _long_?" Jane asked again, punctuating each word strongly.

"Two – two years," Maura said finally, not sure how Jane was going to take the news.

Jane sank down onto the spare chair, the scalpel slipping from her grasp as she did so. Maura tried not to flinch as the instrument clattered to the floor, and she forced herself to keep her eyes on Jane, waiting for her to say something.

"Two years," Jane said at last, her voice weak. Her gaze was fixed on the floor, but there was no intensity in it anymore; her eyes were glazed over, as if her body was going into shock when presented with the knowledge that she'd been gone for so long. Maura stayed silent, giving Jane a moment to collect her thoughts. "Two _years_," Jane said again, looking up this time, but it was like she was looking right through Maura. She laughed, a faint sound that seemed like it got stuck in her throat. "I didn't realize it had been so long."

"Have you been with him since you disappeared?" Maura held her breath as she waited for an answer, not knowing if she'd hit a nerve.

Jane lifted up one shoulder in half a shrug. "Mostly," she said, and Maura was so startled by the honesty – coupled with the lack of violence and anger – that she wasn't sure what to say at first.

"But you escaped, didn't you?" Maura pressed. "That's why you're here now. You got away from Hoyt."

For a second it seemed as if Jane was going to respond, but then she shut off again. Jane could become closed off as quickly as she could become a tempest, and Maura knew that she would be in serious danger if she couldn't keep Jane calm.

Without a word, Jane picked up the scalpel she'd dropped and then returned it to the table. While she was surveying her tools again, something occurred to Maura.

"If you wanted to kill me," she said, her voice almost breaking on the words, "why haven't you done it?"

"I have to follow protocol," Jane murmured without turning around.

The clinical word caught Maura by surprise, and she tried to understand why Jane was acting the way she was. Then it hit her: she was following Hoyt's orders. Maura shuddered. Had Jane Rizzoli, the hero of BPD, joined forces with a serial killer? It didn't seem like Jane had done this before, but Hoyt had killed at least ten people. Maybe Jane was his apprentice. Maybe Maura was supposed to be her first kill.

"You don't have to do what he's telling you to do, Jane," Maura said. The detective became very still, listening but not interacting. "You're not under Hoyt's control. You don't have to do this."

"I do," Jane said, but her voice held no conviction. It was flat, dull, like she'd said it a hundred times and it had ceased to mean a thing. "Now please…" She took a deep breath and then, in that same flat voice, said, "Be quiet."

Then she turned around, holding a scalpel again, but it was different this time. She was holding it with purpose, with direction. And she was moving toward Maura.

"You don't have to do this," Maura said again, but the note of panic in her voice took away from the intended effect. "Please. You don't have to -"

"I thought I told you to be quiet," Jane said, her voice more animated now but no more reassuring. There was a touch of anger in her words, but behind that was resignation – and, if Maura wasn't much mistaken, there was also just a hint of sadness.

"We can help you," Maura said, but she knew she was sounding desperate. Jane knew it too, and the detective came to a stop in front of her, her hesitance fading. She may not have done this before, but she knew she was in control. And Maura was rapidly losing what little composure she had. "Please, Jane, don't do this. We can _help_. Just let me go, and we can -"

"Give it a rest, doc," Jane interrupted, crouching down in front of Maura and holding the scalpel up, giving Maura a full view of the instrument that was meant to end her life.

"Why are you doing this?" Maura said, desperate now to distract Jane, to buy herself more time, although she knew that her chances were running out. "What can Hoyt possibly offer you? Why would you -"

"Because he cares about me, okay?" Jane snapped, her composure breaking for a moment. She ran the non-scalpel-bearing hand through her hair and exhaled sharply through her nose. "He's the only one who does."

The sudden admission caught Maura by surprise, and something in her heart felt like it was snapping. She didn't even want to think about what this poor woman must have been through, to turn her from a hero into a killer. "That's not true," she said softly. "Your friends care about you. Korsak, Frost, Frankie – they never stopped looking for you."

Again Jane let out a bark of laughter, devoid of all warmth and mirth. "Well, lucky for them, they're not gonna have to search very long for you," she said, standing up and reaching for her with the scalpel. "They're gonna find your body pretty soon."

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**Oh by the way, did I mention I love cliffhangers? But don't worry, I'll keep updating often enough to not give you all heart attacks.**

**That's it for now. As always reviews are more than welcome, and I'll see you all next chapter, where we'll check back in with the cavalry and see if Korsak, Frost, and Frankie are any closer to finding their missing friends and colleagues.**

**Until next time...**


	4. Chapter 4

**I know I updated very recently, but I need to clear a few things up so I figured I may as well update again now. Thank you to everyone who left encouraging reviews last chapter, and welcome to any and all new readers. Unfortunately this AN won't be as upbeat as usual, so if you're just here because you're enjoying the story and you don't have any questions/concerns, feel free to skip it and head straight to the good stuff.**

**For those of you who seem to have an issue with the way I'm doing things (mostly the guest reviewer, whom I would have PMed had you reviewed from an account), the rest of this AN is for you.**

**This is a _Drama/Suspense_ story. If it was tragedy, it would be marked as such. Character death alone does not make a story 'tragedy'. I will warn you if a major character is going to die, but I don't see the point in giving away that person's name before it's time. That would spoil the ending, and I don't think it's right to do that. In line with that, suspense stories simply do not work without some level of mystery. That's why I'm being vague - I'm trying to maintain intrigue, not mislead anyone. There is nothing dishonest about that, and I can't be held accountable for your assumptions and expectations. I'm not being upfront because this is a SUSPENSE story, and I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot to make you feel better.**

**As for whether this is a romantic Rizzles story. In a word, no. If it was, they would be listed as a pairing. I don't feel that I should have to write a disclaimer simply because the story isn't Rizzles. I can't be held responsible if anyone comes to this story with any assumptions or preconceived notions of what it's going to be. I never claimed this was a 'Rizzles' story, so I don't think it's fair to be attacked for not putting up a big disclaimer in neon lights just in case someone assumed otherwise. And like I said in my first chapter, I am new to this fandom. That means I'm not familiar with any unspoken rules, so if you wanted to _explain_ them to me that would be helpful, but just calling me out when I don't follow 'rules' I know nothing about is a little unnecessary.**

**Which brings me to my penultimate point: if you have questions, _ask_. I will always answer questions as best I can, without giving away too much about the story. Nobody asked whether this was tragedy or whether it was Rizzles or anything else; if they had, I would have answered. If you want to know something, it's up to you to ask; it's not up to me to make sure people are aware of every single thing that will or will not happen in a story. All I have said is that this is not a Maura/Frankie story - because someone specifically asked me that - and that I couldn't guarantee a happy ending. If you prefer stories where you get a guarantee, then that's fine; just please don't take it out on me when I do things differently.**

**And now my final point. I am not treating you like my Teen Wolf readers. I am treating you the same way I treat all my readers in every fandom I've ever written for. If you want me to change the way I do things, the right way to go about that is to politely ask, not to harangue me in a review. And please, speak for yourself, not the entire fandom. You may not care for my 'heads-up crap', but that doesn't automatically mean everyone is on the same page as you. If you have problems with the way I'm doing things, bring them up with me on your own behalf \- don't just assume everyone agrees with you. People read fanfic for different reasons, and expect different things from it, and authors cater to different audiences. If my way of doing things doesn't line up with your expectations, you have every right to refrain from reading my stories or to even dislike me - but you _don't_ have a right to 'correct' me when I haven't done anything wrong.**

**I welcome constructive criticism, questions, discussions, but what happened last chapter was disheartening to say the least. If you don't like the way I'm doing things - the way I've always done things - then don't read my stories; but also don't make me out to be the bad guy. I'm just a fan, wanting to share my love for the show the best way I know how. I never meant to mislead or deceive anyone, so if I've accidentally done that, I'm sorry. But please just remember that when you leave negative reviews, the person reading them is someone who has put their time and effort into creating something, and then gone through the terror of sharing it with complete strangers, and even if you don't agree with everything they do you should at the very least respect their right to do things their own way.**

**You're asking for honesty, and that's fair. But in return the least you can do is give me a little courtesy.**

**Sorry for the length of this AN. Like I said, I would prefer to do it by PM, but that wasn't possible. I hope I'm not coming across too harsh here, but I was bewildered by the response last chapter and I felt I needed to clarify a few things.**

**And now that's done, here's the chapter.**

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**8:25 pm.**

The headlights swept across the empty street, and Frankie felt his heart sink. There was only one car on this side of the road, and Frankie recognized it as belonging to none other than the Chief Medical Examiner.

"That's Maura's car," Frost confirmed as Korsak guided his car to a stop behind it.

Frankie was the first one out of the car, with Korsak and Frost not far behind. He'd been on high alert ever since Maura had failed to show up for their meeting, and now at last he had a purpose toward which to direct his attention. With a deep breath he turned his agitation toward the scene in front of him, taking in the evidence, trying to figure out what happened. He was a detective, and it was time he acted like one.

"No sign of a crash," Frost said, circling the car. His keen eye came in handy during investigations, and Frankie knew that if there was any sign of foul play, Frost would be the first one to notice it.

"No brake marks on the road," Korsak added, already pulling on a pair of gloves in case they found any physical evidence.

"So she came to a stop naturally," Frankie surmized, turning on his flashlight and sweeping the beam across the road. "She didn't hit anything."

"Or anyone," Frost added grimly. He straightened up from where he'd been crouched in front of the car, looking for any damage.

Frankie turned his flashlight toward Frost, who blinked in the sudden light. "Sorry," Frankie said, hurriedly shutting it off. "Anything else?"

"Her keys aren't in the car," Frost said, shining his own flashlight into the vehicle. "Nothing inside looks out of the ordinary."

"What does that say to you?" Korsak asked. Although Korsak normally made an effort to include Frankie, he'd made it clear that he didn't think the younger Rizzoli wasn't quite a sufficient substitute for the original. It surprised Frankie that he was going out of his way to include him this time, but he didn't push it.

"It looks like she stopped on her own," Frankie said, his hand drifting down to his gun – a nervous habit he'd picked up not long after Jane disappeared. On some subconscious level he assumed it was his way of reassuring himself that he was safe, that he could protect himself, but he knew that Jane had always carried her gun and it hadn't stopped Hoyt from getting to her. Clearing his throat, he went on, "She took her keys with her, which suggests that she wasn't in a hurry or in any immediate danger. No one dragged her from the car or forced her to get out. Or if they did, they must have taken the keys."

"Good," Korsak murmured, sounding genuinely impressed. "What else?"

"I can't see any blood," Frankie said, turning on his flashlight again. He aimed the beam at the road, then brought it back to the sidewalk, and finally rested it on the car. Nothing seemed unusual, and there was no indication that there had been a struggle anywhere nearby. "The dirt isn't disturbed either."

"So she wasn't attacked here?" Frost suggested, confusion coloring his voice. "Why would she have left her car then?"

"Why would she have even stopped?" Frankie countered.

"Lots of reasons," Korsak said with a shrug, starting to move away from the car and search the side of the road. "She saw someone in distress. She ran into car trouble. She saw someone she knew."

"That's not helping us narrow it down," Frankie pointed out, causing Korsak's frown to deepen. "Sorry," Frankie added. "I'm just…"

"It's okay," Frost said, his voice more gentle than Frankie had heard it in a long time. He knew where that sympathy came from, and he wished again that things were different.

"Let's widen the search," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose and hoping that he wasn't about to start crying. They'd been through this before, two years ago. They'd lost Jane then, and now it seemed like they were going to lose Maura. Even if the two cases weren't related, it was still a huge blow. How were they supposed to keep the streets safe when they couldn't even protect their own?

Korsak and Frost spread out, temporarily letting Frankie, the most junior detective on the team, take the lead. He wasn't sure whether it was because they knew where his thoughts were headed or because they wanted to give him experience, but he didn't mind either way. Acting like he was in charge made him feel more confident, like he might actually be able to be half the detective that Jane was.

"Look at this," Korsak said after a couple of minutes, shining his flashlight on the road. The other two joined him, and Frankie followed the beam with his eyes.

"Tire tracks," Frost said softly. "Looks like someone got out of here in a hurry."

"So," Frankie said, taking a step back and glancing between the tire tracks and Maura's abandoned car, "she pulls over because she sees someone or something that gets her attention. Someone persuades her to get into their car – or knocks her out and drags her into the car – and then gets the hell out of dodge."

Korsak nodded, silently supporting Frankie's theory. "Rizzoli, take some photographs of the area. Maybe the tire tracks will help us track the car that took her."

Frankie nodded and went to the cruiser to get the camera equipment while Korsak continued to examine the tire tracks. Frost started searching again, working in ever widening circles around the car, which they took to be the focal point of their crime scene.

While Frankie photographed the scene, Korsak and Frost kept widening their search. Just as Frankie was finishing up, he heard a shout.

"Over here," Frost called, waving them both over to a patch of shrubs near one of the houses. When they both arrived he pointed at an object nestled among the leaves, and Frankie's breath caught in his throat.

"Is that -" he started, and Korsak nodded in confirmation.

"Maura's phone," Frost finished. He pulled it out and rested it on one gloved hand, seemingly reluctant to try using it – especially given that the screen was cracked, like the cell had been thrown against the sidewalk. Frankie knew from experience that Frost was paranoid about deleting information after having tried to turn on a broken phone and accidentally wiping it completely.

Korsak, apparently remembering this, reached out and took the phone from him. "Here goes nothing," he muttered, pressing the power button with his thumb.

A long moment passed, and another, and nothing happened. Korsak cursed and handed the phone back to Frost, who looked crestfallen. Their one lead, and it was busted.

"Hang on," Frankie said suddenly, noticing something off to the side of the bushes they'd found the phone in. Ignoring the startled looks his colleagues were giving him, he scrambled forward and snatched up what turned out to be a piece of paper. He moved back so the others could see and then unfurled the paper, which looked like it had been torn out of a notebook.

There, scribbled across the middle of the page, were the words:

_Catch me if you can._

The three detectives shared a significant look, and finally Frankie gave voice to the thought they were all trying not to acknowledge.

"It's the same," he said quietly, standing up and letting the paper fall to the ground. "It's the same as the note Hoyt left before Jane disappeared."

X.X.X.X.X

**9:33 pm.**

The station was quiet when the group returned. Nobody else was working this late – aside from the crime techs who were going to examine Maura's car, which had been brought to the station – and although they debated calling in some other people in the division they eventually decided against it. Until they had more of a lead there wasn't much point in bringing in anyone else. Now they were all occupied in their own pursuits, each hoping to hit a breakthrough.

"Anything, Frost?" Frankie asked from across the room, where he was sorting through the case files from two years ago. He hadn't gotten to the parts about Jane yet, but he knew they were coming and he didn't think he'd ever be ready to deal with them.

"Not yet," Frost said from his place by the computers. He'd been trying to get Maura's phone to work, but it was so badly damaged that he wasn't having any luck. They'd checked it for fingerprints too, but whoever had broken it had worn gloves. They weren't dealing with a random crime here; this had been premeditated. Someone had gone after Maura specifically, and they still couldn't figure out why.

"Korsak?" Frankie prompted.

The sergeant had been making calls to CIs for the past ten minutes, and now he held his hand over the receiver, mouthed, _Nothing, _and then returned to the call. Frankie slumped back in his chair, fighting off an oncoming wave of hopelessness.

He still couldn't figure out why Hoyt – if that's who it was – would have taken Maura. She hadn't even been working here when his case was active, and as far as Frankie knew Maura had shown no interest in the case since she'd been here. She hadn't looked into it at all, which meant that she couldn't possibly have found any new evidence or leads that would cause Hoyt to target her. But there had to be a connection somewhere.

Just as Frankie pulled yet another folder toward him, Korsak suddenly got to his feet. All eyes turned to him.

"Got something?" Frost asked hopefully.

"Maybe." Korsak grabbed his jacket, switched off his computer, and headed for the door. "We've got a guy who thinks he saw someone kidnapping a person matching Dr Isles' description. I'm going to interview him now."

Without another word he left the room, and a stunned silence followed. Then, spurred on by the possible lead, Frankie and Frost redoubled their efforts. By the time Korsak returned, Frankie had gotten up to the last folder – the one about Jane's disappearance. It had been filed under The Surgeon because that had been the last case she worked on, and because Hoyt had seemed to take a personal interest in her. His interest had bordered on obsession, and that had been one of the main driving forces behind Jane's desire to track him down. And it might well have been what got her killed.

As he read the files, Frankie found himself wondering about his sister. Although he desperately hoped that she was still alive, part of him didn't really believe it. She'd been gone too long, and Hoyt had never been known to take prisoners before. He killed people, and sometimes their bodies didn't turn up for a few months… but they never showed up alive.

"God, Janie," Frankie murmured to himself, "what happened to you?"

For a moment he allowed himself to wonder what Jane would be like if she was alive today, and whether she'd be proud of the person he'd become. He'd finally made Detective, he was working in Homicide like he'd always wanted, and to the outside observer it seemed like he'd finally gotten his life together. But he'd trade that all in a heartbeat if it meant getting his sister back.

"We have a description," Korsak announced as he came into the room. Frankie looked up from the paperwork in amazement, hardly daring to believe that they could have caught a break. "The sketch artist's working on it now. We should have a picture soon."

Frankie breathed out slowly. If they could find the person who took Maura, they could track her down. "Do you think it was Hoyt?"

"Not likely," Korsak said as he sat back down. He paused, his gaze sweeping over his two colleagues, and then said, "The abductor was a woman."

"A woman?" Frost echoed in surprise. Frankie turned to him, giving him a sharp look, and Frost backpedalled. "I'm not saying girls can't be the bad guys. I'm just… surprised, is all."

Korsak snorted, and they fell into silence while they waited for the sketch artist to finish. As if to make up for the slow beginning of the investigation, the first lead seemed to set off a snowball effect.

"The sketch is done," Korsak said, reading an alert on his phone. "They're emailing it to me." He turned his attention to the computer, his brow furrowing as he read the email.

Frankie started to respond, but at that moment his phone went off. "The crime lab found prints on Maura's car – and it looks like they found a match," he said, startled. Was it really going to be this easy? "They're sending the info through now."

"It can't be," Korsak said softly, disbelief evident in every syllable. He tapped a couple of keys and a picture came up on the screens. Frankie glanced up at it and felt his heart slam to a stop. It couldn't be.

"But that looks like…" Frost said, trailing off as words failed him. He shook his head. "That's not possible."

"It is," Frankie said in surprise as the print results came through. He projected those onto the screen, so that the driver's licence photo was side-by-side with the sketch. And all three of them stared at the screen in mounting horror.

A long beat of silence passed, and finally Frankie forced himself to speak, to say the words he'd practiced a hundred times in his head but never quite believed.

"It's Jane," he said in disbelief. "She's alive."

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**In case anyone's still reading, I'll update again by the end of the week. If anyone has any actual constructive criticism or questions, you're welcome to PM me at any point. Just please, be polite. The world's harsh enough already; let's not add to that.**


	5. Chapter 5

**So, wow. Thank you all so, so much for all the encouragement last chapter. You're all fantastic and I'm so grateful to have such mature, supportive people reading my story. On that note, from here on out I will be ignoring negative guest reviews; if you have something to say, please have enough decency to do it from an account. And in case anyone was wondering, I do write same-sex stories and I'm not exactly straight myself, so chances are I may end up writing an actual Rizzles story at some point.**

**Speaking of other stories, I have one in the works that needs a beta. If you're interested or have any recommendations, please let me know.**

**And now that all the negativity is behind us, let's focus on the story. Slight warning for this chapter because there's discussion of sensitive subjects; nothing graphic but potentially enough to be upsetting. Read with caution. That said, this chapter is probably my favorite, so I hope you all enjoy it.**

**Read, review, and thank you all again, so much. Your support is so important to me that I can't even find the words to express my gratitude. And rest assured, I haven't been scared away from the fandom yet. ;)**

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**9:37 pm.**

"If you tell me one more time that my indecisiveness is due to some kind of internal psychological struggle, I'm going to take this scalpel and -"

Maura was very conscious of the fact that Jane was still holding the scalpel in question, and that the hand she was using to hold it was shaking. She may be indecisive, but she was also impulsive, and Maura wasn't sure what would finally send her over the edge. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, and Jane relaxed slightly in response. "I'll stop talking, if that's what you want."

Jane narrowed her eyes, clearly suspicious, but Maura wasn't trying to pull anything on her; she was just trying to stay alive. So far Jane hadn't actually hurt her, and as long as Maura kept it that way she knew she might stand a chance.

"Well, yeah," Jane said gruffly. "That would be a good start."

Despite herself, Maura couldn't stay silent. As scared as she was, she was also beginning to become intrigued. Jane wasn't showing typical serial killer behaviour – she was hiding a lot of uncertainty behind her apparently confident demeanour, and despite the presence of more scalpels than in Maura's entire lab she hadn't actually used any of them on her yet. Something was holding her back. She hadn't quite gone past the point of no return, and Maura knew her one chance was in bringing her back.

"You don't want to do this," Maura said, hoping her voice was as steady as she intended it to be. Her anxiety was easing now that Jane was standing farther away, but she knew the tides could turn at any moment.

"I thought I told you to be quiet," Jane said, but there was no real hostility in her voice. She sat back down, tapping the scalpel absently against the back of the chair, and looked at Maura curiously. Then she schooled her face back into a neutral expression, and in that one movement Maura came to a sudden realization. Just as she was trying to hide her fear from Jane, the detective was trying to hide her emotions from her – as if she was afraid of seeming weak as well.

The realization was so unexpected that it took Maura a moment to process it. Although Jane was clearly in control here, the longer Maura was here the more she realized that Jane didn't seem to believe she was in control at all. It was a bizarre game, each trying to show less emotion than the other, and Maura had a feeling she was the one who was losing.

"Listen, Jane," Maura said cautiously, and the detective stopped tapping the scalpel against the chair, all her attention focused on her captive. "I know you don't want to do this."

"Uh huh," Jane said dismissively. "And you know this because…?"

"Because you've had a hundred chances to kill me," Maura said simply. "Look at me." She glanced down at her wrists and ankles, still bound to the chair, and then back up at Jane. "You've got all the power here. If you wanted to cut my throat, there's no way I'd be able to stop you. So why haven't you done it yet?"

"Because -" Jane started, but she cut herself off abruptly when she realized she didn't have an answer.

"You said you had to follow protocol," Maura reminded her. "Whose protocol? Hoyt's?"

Reluctantly, Jane nodded. Her gaze dropped again, her eyes lowered to the floor, a strangely submissive signal from an otherwise apparently confident woman. Something about the gesture made Maura feel a twinge of sadness. From talk around the station she knew Jane was as brave as they came, willing to take a bullet for her friends or risk losing her job to stand up for what was right. And here she was, unable to even look her in the eyes. Maura wondered yet again what had happened to her in those missing two years, what Hoyt had done to her to turn her into this conflicted, complicated person.

"What did he tell you to do, Jane?" Maura asked gently. It was a simple trick, repeating the detective's name in an attempt to ground her, but it seemed to be working.

The detective looked up, meeting Maura's eyes for a second, and then she looked away. Her gaze drifted down again, to the scalpel still in her hand. Her hand trembled, and she made a visible effort to still it. "He has a… a system," Jane said softly. "He does the same thing to… to all the girls."

Maura swallowed her revulsion. "How many girls has he done this to?"

Jane's hand twitched. "Lots," she admitted. "I don't… I lost count."

"That's okay," Maura said, realizing that this train of conversation was upsetting Jane. She couldn't risk setting her off again. "Can you tell me what he does to them, Jane?"

Even asking her that was a risk, since mentions of Hoyt earlier had been enough to cause Jane to hold a scalpel to Maura's throat. But the anger seemed to have vanished now, and with it went some of Jane's fire. At first she'd seemed tough, in control, a woman on a mission. Now she seemed empty, somehow, like without her anger there wasn't anything left.

"He, uh, he…" Jane cut herself off again, hesitation taking the place of previous anger. She turned her hands over so that her palms were facing her, her eyes drifting between the two scars. Then she rested them on the back of the chair again and muttered, "He finds someone he likes. He started off targeting couples, killing the woman while the man watched. But he changed his MO not long before… before he found me."

"It's okay," Maura said in the most reassuring voice she could manage. She was still terrified, but she found her heart going out to Jane, to this wounded woman who had been through the kind of hell that Maura wouldn't wish upon her worst enemies. "You're doing well, Jane," she said, but with the way Jane flinched it was more like Maura had physically hurt her, like she'd stabbed her with one of the scalpels instead of just offering her encouragement. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had said something nice to Jane. "Can you tell me what he does once he finds a victim?"

Maura knew that Jane was volatile, that she was likely to snap at any given moment, but she also knew that she had to keep her talking. And now that Jane had started talking about Hoyt, she didn't seem to be able to stop.

"He gets her alone," Jane explained, her voice shaking more with every word, "usually takes her off the street or from her house. Sometimes he knocks her out, sometimes he stuns her, sometimes just a threat… Then he gets her into the car."

_Like you did to me,_ Maura wanted to say, but she was almost certain that even hinting at Jane being like Hoyt would be enough to cause another outburst.

"He, um, he takes her to a secure location," Jane went on, her voice still shaking and her hand starting to tremble again. "Then he… he starts."

"What does he do to them, Jane?" Maura asked. And in that question was the one she couldn't ask directly: _What did he to do you?_

"He puts a scalpel through each hand," Jane said after a moment. Her hands were shaking as much as her voice now, and Maura found her gaze getting caught on the scars on the detective's hands. "That way they can't… they can't run."

Maura's breath caught in her throat, but she didn't interrupt. Now that Jane was talking she didn't want her to stop, even though everything she said was like a knife to Maura's heart. _Those poor girls._

"Once he's done that, he…" Jane paused again, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to continue – or as if she wasn't sure she had the strength to. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and then finished, "H-he rapes them. And then he kills them."

"What about your wrist, Jane?" Maura said once she was sure Jane had stopped talking. "How did you break it?"

"I tried to…" Jane said hesitantly. She looked down at her hands, which were still shaking, and then she clenched her fists, one of which was still holding the scalpel. "I tried to stop him."

The implication was clear, and Maura was suddenly sure that she couldn't stand to hear any more. She'd done autopsies on victims who had suffered horrible injuries, she'd read through case studies and read reports on people who had been raped and beaten and disfigured beyond recognition, but hearing an account of such violence from someone who had survived it was a much more harrowing experience.

After waiting a couple of minutes to allow Jane to compose herself again, Maura steeled herself and said, "Jane?"

The detective jerked her head up, meeting Maura's gaze. Her expression was guarded, not openly aggressive but not friendly either. "What?"

"Would you mind maybe untying me?" Maura held her breath after she'd asked the question, and she quickly lowered her gaze, trying her best to seem unthreatening. She wanted Jane to feel like she was in control, and to do that Maura had to give up any pretences of her own power. "It's just… these ropes are really tight, and -"

"Clever," Jane interrupted, standing up again. Her manner was changing yet again, becoming more guarded. The vulnerability she'd shown when talking about Hoyt was quickly being hidden underneath layers of confidence and what Maura was slowly recognizing as feigned hostility.

"I promise I won't try to run," Maura said. "You've got the scalpels; you're in control. What harm could it do?"

Jane ran a hand through her hair again, something that Maura had seen Frankie do a thousand times. She wondered what other similarities there would be between the two. For a second she allowed herself to consider how Frankie would react when – _if_ – he found out that his sister was alive, but then realized that she didn't want to know. She didn't want Frankie to see Jane like this. The detectives all thought Jane was a hero; it wouldn't be right for them to see how far she'd fallen.

"Please, Jane," Maura said, playing on the other woman's inner conflict. "I promise I won't try anything. You have my word."

"The word of a stranger," Jane snorted. "That makes me feel better."

"I'm not a stranger," Maura pointed out. "You know who I am. You know that I'm trustworthy."

There was a long beat of silence, just long enough for Maura to think that she'd made a fatal mistake, and then Jane stood up. Maura shrank back, hating herself for the sudden rush of fear, but Jane didn't seem like she was about to do anything violent. She approached slowly, and then she crouched down in front of Maura.

"Hold still," Jane ordered quietly, and in less than a minute the ropes were falling away and Maura was rubbing her aching wrists, sore from where the ropes had pressed against them. It didn't escape her notice that she now had marks reminiscent of the ones on Jane's wrists. "Thank you," Maura said, and Jane dipped her head slightly in response.

"If you try to run, I won't hesitate," Jane said abruptly, holding up one of the scalpels. There was something easy in the way she was holding it, like it was something she'd done before, and it was then that Maura realized why Jane seemed to have medical knowledge. Hoyt, a med school dropout, must have taught her. He'd been preparing her for this, like he wanted her to follow in his footsteps. The thought made Maura shudder.

"You're the only one who escaped," Maura said, more a question than a statement, but she was ready to back down if Jane showed any sign of aggression.

"I didn't escape," Jane countered quietly, confirming a suspicion that had been growing in Maura's mind. "He let me go."

"So you could kill me," Maura supplied, and Jane nodded. "It wasn't your idea. Hoyt told you to do this."

"Yes," Jane said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"So you don't really want to hurt me," Maura said quietly, "do you?"

Again, the word was barely audible, but it was enough to cause Maura's heart to skip a hopeful beat. "No."

Maura breathed a silent sigh of relief. Although Jane was still unstable, it didn't seem like she was actually homicidal. And that was a good start.

"So do you think you could… you could let me go?" Maura asked hopefully.

Jane looked over at her, and the guardedness faded from her eyes. But the sadness it left behind was enough to break Maura's heart. Without saying a word Jane reached into her pocket and withdrew a small black case, and even before she pulled out the syringe, Maura knew what was coming.

"No," Jane said sadly, "no, I don't think I can."

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**See you all next chapter!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Looks like the negativity is behind us, thank goodness. And thank you all for your reviews, they really mean a lot to me. This chapter might help you make sense of what's going on, as well as potentially give you a little hope for a not-tragic ending (the best I can do, since 'happy endings' in fics this dark don't really make sense). I'm going to be overseas for a while so this will be the last update this month, but then I shall be back so we can finish this off. In the meantime give me lots of love (by that I mean reviews), and enjoy the chapter.**

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**9:59 pm.**

"This doesn't make any sense," Korsak said for the third time in half as many minutes. He was surveying the board again, his eyes darting between each point of evidence – pictures of the scene where Maura was taken, the sketch based on the witness' description, the results from the fingerprints found on Maura's car.

"I know it doesn't make sense," Frankie said, trying to assuage him, "but you know what Dr Isles always says. The evidence doesn't lie."

"Then we're looking at it wrong," Frost said sharply, getting to his feet and joining his colleagues in front of the board. He'd been trying to get Maura's phone to work until they found out about Jane's prints being on the car, and since then he had been searching through the old case files, the Missing Person's report from when Jane disappeared, everything he could find about the incident.

Frankie had offered to take over for him, but to his relief the other detective had refused, leaving Frankie in charge of going over the non-Jane-related information from The Surgeon… again. "We have to be missing something," Frankie added, although he wasn't sure. He didn't understand why Jane's prints would be on the car, and more than that he couldn't understand how she could be alive without them knowing about it. They'd never stopped searching for her, and it didn't seem possible that she could have showed up without them finding out at once.

"This is all the evidence we have," Korsak reminded him, sitting down at his desk with a heavy sigh. "So let's see how we can put it all together. Maybe if we come up with a theory we might be able to find the evidence to back it up."

"You know Maura would hate for us to be guessing," Frankie said with the first hints of a smile he'd shown in hours. The Medical Examiner was well known for her dislike of theorising and following hunches – a stark contrast to Jane, who went with her gut even when the evidence was against her. It was one of the things that had made her such a great detective, and something Frankie had tried to emulate. But right now his gut was churning too much to be of any help.

"We're not guessing," Korsak said, returning Frankie's half-smile with one of his own. It would almost be convincing, if not for the worry clouding his eyes. "We're speculating. It's all very professional."

Frost snorted, and a brief moment of levity fell on the group. Frankie wondered what Maura would say if she were here – and then what Jane would say. Maura would probably tell them to go over the evidence again, while Jane would be making intuitive leaps and cracking the case before anyone else had a chance to even catch up.

"Theory," Frankie said, sitting down at his desk and swinging his chair so that he was facing both Frost and Korsak. "Jane escapes from Hoyt," he started, surprised at how sure his voice was. He didn't like talking about Jane, or about Hoyt, or about anything that had happened two years ago, but he knew it was the only way to move forward. "She's lost, confused, maybe hurt. She's wandering the streets when along comes Maura. She gets out of the car to help her and, realizing who she is, offers to take her to the station."

"But they didn't get into Maura's car," Frost interrupted. "Jane wouldn't have had a car with her. How did they get away?"

Frankie thought for a moment, and then shook his head. So much for that theory.

"What about this," Frost said after considering for a few seconds. "Jane gets away from Hoyt," he began, with a cautious glance at Frankie to make sure he was okay; Frankie dipped his head slightly, and Frost went on. "Maura comes across her and tries to help. But then Hoyt catches up with Jane, and he takes both of them."

The immediate rush of relief that came from having a workable theory was quickly washed away as the implications sank in.

"If Hoyt has them…" Frankie said grimly, unwilling to even give voice to his thoughts.

"He's not a very forgiving guy," Korsak agreed darkly. "He wouldn't want Jane to get away again."

"And he wouldn't risk Maura getting away either," Frost said. He breathed in deeply, his shoulders shuddering. Then he asked, "Do you think they're still alive?"

"Yes," Frankie said before Korsak could answer. If he heard anyone even suggest that the girls might not be alive, he knew his composure would break. He needed to believe they'd get them back. Nothing else mattered.

Korsak didn't contradict him, and Frankie deliberately avoided his eyes so he wouldn't see the sympathy in his expression.

"So we just have to find them before Hoyt…" Frost started to say, but cut himself off when he realized what he'd been about to say. He paused, frowning, and then turned to Frankie. "Have you told your mother?"

Caught off-guard, Frankie just blinked.

"About Jane being alive," Korsak clarified. "She went through hell when Jane disappeared. She'd want to know she's alive."

"We don't have proof," Frankie pointed out. "If this is a false alarm, it would kill her." He paused, waiting for the others to argue, but they didn't say a thing. Shrugging, he turned back to the board. "Besides, Ma's out of town for a while. Some business meeting in New York. She won't be back until next week."

"No sense disturbing her then," Korsak said, and Frankie was relieved that they were on his side. He knew his mother would probably murder him if he didn't tell her right away that they'd found evidence that Jane was alive, but he couldn't bear it if they'd made a mistake or misinterpreted. If Jane really was dead, or if they couldn't prove she was alive, he didn't want to be the one giving his mother false hope. He couldn't do that to her, not after he'd seen what Jane's disappearance had done to her.

"Right," Frost said. He looked like he was about to say something else, but apparently thought better of it. Changing track, he turned to Korsak and said, "What do we know of Hoyt's MO?"

While Korsak recounted the story of Hoyt, Frankie let his mind wander; he'd been reading those files for hours, he didn't need a paraphrased version. His eyes drifted between the pictures on the board, Maura's staff ID picture and Jane's driver's licence photo. He allowed himself to wonder whether they would have gotten along if they'd had the chance to know each other, and he hoped that if Hoyt really had taken both of them, they'd at least be taking care of each other.

Protecting people was part of Jane's nature, and helping people was part of Maura's, and maybe if they worked together they'd be able to save each other.

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**10:02 pm.**

"Don't scream."

The words registered before Maura was aware that she was awake. Her eyes flickered open and she met the gaze of the detective, whose eyes were dark, her mouth tilted down in concentration. It was then that Maura realized she was lying down – on the floor, it felt like – with Jane leaning over her.

"What are you doing?" Maura mumbled, still groggy from the compound that Jane had used to knock her out. She tried to sit up but Jane pushed her back down again, holding her arms down above her head. Like the women in the crime scene photos she'd seen in Hoyt's files, during the few times she had come across them in her job. "No," Maura gasped, realizing what was about to happen. "No, Jane, don't -"

"Stop saying my name," Jane said sharply, her grip on Maura's arms tightening as she held her down. "We're not friends."

"But we don't have to be enemies either," Maura said, knowing she sounded desperate but unable to care. Jane was starting Hoyt's 'protocol' – and the first part of that was a scalpel to each hand. She knew Jane had gone through that – it explained the scars on her palms and the tremor in her voice when she'd recounted Hoyt's system earlier – but Maura also knew that she herself had a low pain threshold. Jane might have been able to handle the pain, but Maura knew it would break her.

"This will be easier if you stop talking," Jane said, and there was a gentleness in her voice that Maura hadn't expected.

Even after realizing that Jane was acting on Hoyt's orders and not of her own volition, Maura hadn't been sure how far the detective was going to take this. But the look in Jane's eyes made it clear that she didn't want to do this. Maura's first estimation of her had been proven incorrect; Jane may not have appeared desperate, but she was definitely driven to this. She wasn't a serial killer, and Maura was doubting that she was even a bad person.

"Please," Maura said again, but Jane had blocked her out. The other woman, though slightly malnourished and evidently tired, was a lot stronger than Maura, and there was nothing she could do to stop her as the detective held a scalpel to her hand, resting the tip in the center of her palm.

And then, to her absolute horror, Maura started to cry. She tried to hold it back at first, but then she remembered that they were probably somewhere out of the way. Nobody would hear her scream, let alone cry. And suddenly she couldn't see through the tears and her breath was catching on sobs.

As she blinked away the tears Maura saw Jane's expression, and it wasn't the stone-cold look of a killer. It was a look of dawning realization as the detective realized what she'd been about to do. For a second Maura felt pressure on her hand and she closed her eyes, bracing herself for the pain. But it never came.

The next thing she knew the weight was lifting, and when she opened her eyes again her vision was clear. Jane was kneeling a few feet away, her hand still wrapped around the scalpel, and to Maura's astonishment it looked like the detective was close to tears.

"I can't do it," Jane muttered, staring at the scalpel. She shook her head as if trying to rid herself of Hoyt's voice in her mind. "I can't _do it_," she repeated, her voice shaking.

Slowly Maura sat up, watching Jane for a reaction. The detective wasn't watching her, but when Maura started to stand Jane jerked her head up to watch her.

"You don't have to do it," Maura said soothingly, holding her hands up to reassure Jane that she was in charge, that Maura was entirely at her mercy. "You don't have to do it."

"You don't understand," Jane said, her voice close to breaking, and a tear actually slid down her cheek. "I have to do it." She paused, staring at Maura, and her next words came out as almost a wail. "But I _can't_."

"Why do you think you have to do it?" Maura asked, but Jane didn't respond, just shook her head rapidly back and forth and bit her lip. "If you come with me, I can take you to someone who can help. We'll make sure Hoyt can't hurt you anymore."

"You don't understand," Jane said again, her hand tightening around the scalpel; she looked for a moment like she was contemplating driving it into her own leg, but then her grip loosened and she looked up at Maura in despair.

"What don't I understand?" Maura asked gently, slowly lowering her hands. Jane didn't seem to be an immediate threat.

"He has her," Jane admitted, and even though Maura didn't understand the words, the sadness in the detective's voice was enough to break her heart. And then when she did explain, Maura's heart stopped altogether. "Hoyt has my mother."

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**Like it? You might like to review. Have a theory or hunch? I'd love to hear it. Want to offer constructive criticism? You're more than welcome.**

**See you all next time, and don't forget to review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Annnd we're back. Let's get straight into it, guys. I hope you enjoy the chapter.**

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**10:13 pm.**

The weight of the confession pressed down on them, and Jane felt her heart clenching as she realized just what she'd done. If what this doctor said was true it had been two years since she stopped being Detective Jane Rizzoli and just became one of Hoyt's girls. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd spoken to anyone other than Hoyt, but there was something strangely comforting about the doctor. But Jane knew that she didn't deserve comfort, not after everything she'd done – and not after what she'd been planning to do to Maura herself.

"You're sure?" Maura said after a while.

Jane's gaze snapped over to the doctor, who was sitting a few feet away, her legs tucked under her and her hands in her lap. She looked like she was getting ready for a picnic, but the fear in her eyes reminded Jane of just how serious the situation was. She'd kidnapped the Chief Medical Examiner, just snatched her right off the street like Hoyt had done to so many women, and she'd had every intention of killing her. What other choice did she have?

"Yes," Jane said. Her voice was slightly hoarse and she still felt tears pricking behind her eyes, something that made her more ashamed than she cared to admit. She was supposed to be in control, and here she was blubbering like a baby. It was a far cry from the person she used to be, the detective who could take a bullet and hardly even blink. She was falling apart, and it was only a matter of time before there were too many pieces of her to put back together. "He has my mother," she went on. "I've seen the proof."

She was deliberately avoiding meeting Maura's eyes, worried about what she'd see there. Would it be sympathy? Hatred? Fear? Some horrible mix of all three? She didn't want to know.

"We need to tell the others," Maura said, "Frankie, Frost, Korsak."

Each name was a blow to the heart, and by the end of it Jane had squeezed her eyes closed, trying to block out memories of her former colleagues. At first she'd held out hope that they'd find her, but the days slipped by and the only one who ever came to her was Hoyt. The strange thing was, she never really blamed them for it. Hoyt was a psychopath, but he was brilliant; he hid his tracks, he chose his victims carefully, he'd been connected to a handful of murders but they'd never been able to prove a thing. If they hadn't been able to track him down before, how were they supposed to find him simply because he'd taken Jane?

And now, hearing Maura say their names, hearing her say that they'd never stopped looking for her, it hurt in ways she hadn't believed possible. After a while she'd forced herself to stop thinking of them, to focus on the present and not everyone she'd left behind.

"We can't tell them," Jane said sadly. When Hoyt had let her go, her first thought had been to go to the station. But Hoyt was watching her, and he'd know if she didn't go through with it. And if she didn't do what he said, then he'd kill her mother. Korsak and the others may be good at what they did, but Hoyt was, as far as she could tell, unbeatable. In the two years she'd been with him, she'd never seen him make a single mistake. Every piece of evidence they found was a clue deliberately left behind by him, and he wasn't going to be found until he was ready.

"I know you're scared of Hoyt -" Maura started, and something about the phrase struck a nerve.

"I am _not_ scared of him," Jane growled. "And stop saying his name."

"Sorry," Maura said quickly, falling back into the pattern she'd been displaying this entire time – backing off the second she suspected that Jane was about to become violent.

Jane didn't blame her for her reactions. Even Jane herself didn't know how far she was going to take this, and she wasn't entirely sure what would set her off. Talking about Hoyt earlier, admitting what he'd done to her and the other women – that had been hard. But managing her temper was proving to be impossible. She didn't want to talk about Hoyt, and she didn't want to hurt Maura, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do.

"Is he – is he watching us right now?" Maura asked cautiously.

Startled, Jane turned to face her again. She caught a glimpse of fear in Maura's eyes before the other woman hid it behind a reassuring smile, encouraging her to answer. There was something almost likeable about this woman, something surprisingly friendly given the circumstances. Jane found herself thinking that before all of this, Maura might have been the kind of person Jane would consider a friend.

"No, he's not," Jane said. She hesitated, and then, hating herself for opening up, said, "But I have a deadline. If you're not dead by midnight…"

"It's okay," Maura cut in, and Jane was relieved that she didn't have to finish the sentence. She couldn't stand to think about what that bastard was going to do to her mother. She'd seen him kill before, and he took pleasure in prolonging it. There was no short and sweet with him; it was nothing less than torture.

Silence stretched between them. Jane turned the scalpel over in her hands, thinking about what she'd been through with Hoyt, about how he'd taken her and tried to break her. How he'd chosen her specifically because she was so _good_, the epitome of everything he wasn't. How he'd tried to make her like him, tried to get her to hurt people. How he'd hurt her when she refused. Maura's voice broke through her confused thoughts, and she was startled to realize that her heart rate had risen and her hands were clammy. Classic signs of anxiety, like she'd been about to have a panic attack.

"Jane?" Maura said quietly.

Dragging herself out of her own crowded mind, Jane focused on the doctor. "What?" she asked, trying to inject some venom into her voice, but she was too worn out to care when she merely sounded sad.

"Do you think it would be okay if you gave me the scalpel?"

Her voice was so gentle it was almost painful. Jane wasn't used to quiet voices and kind words; she was used to orders, to threats, to sickening promises. Maura kept catching her off-guard, and Jane wasn't sure how to react. Without thinking her hand tightened around the scalpel. As long as she had it, she could convince herself that she was still doing her job. The moment she relinquished that control, she would have nothing. But she couldn't quite bring herself to say no.

So she held onto the silence, and Maura held her tongue for a minute or two.

"I'd really like it if you could give me the scalpel," Maura tried after a while, still in that same quiet voice, like she was soothing a wounded animal. And in her mind that's probably what this was. Jane wasn't the decorated detective she used to be; she was a mess, and she was dangerous, and she'd almost killed this woman just because it was what she was told to do. "I think you'll feel better if you let go of it," Maura urged, but she made no move toward her.

Jane wasn't sure that was true, but holding onto it wasn't giving her much relief either. Holding onto it was like holding onto the memories of who she used to be. She wasn't Detective Jane Rizzoli anymore; she was The Surgeon's apprentice. And the only thing she had going for her was that she was the one with the scalpels.

"Please, Jane," Maura said, and this time she did move, inching closer slowly so as not to alarm Jane. "It's going to be okay. Just let go of the scalpel."

Dimly it occurred to Jane that Maura could have bailed by now. The second Jane stopped holding her down, Maura could have made a run for it. Heck, Jane was so wound up that Maura probably could have even taken her out. But Maura was still here, and her voice was soft with sympathy – another emotion that Jane had long ago forgotten. Hoyt didn't have any sympathy, any compassion, any kindness. He had nothing human in him, and Jane had begun to believe that she was like him.

"I can't," Jane mumbled, but she didn't move away from Maura.

The doctor kept approaching with almost-glacial slowness, her eyes darting between Jane's face and her hand. When she was half a foot away Maura stopped. She was almost close enough to touch, but her expression made it clear that she wasn't about to try to overpower her. She was waiting for Jane to give up control voluntarily. And she couldn't do that.

"I can't," Jane repeated, but even she didn't know what she was talking about anymore – letting go of the scalpel, letting go of the past, or simply letting Maura live.

"Yes you can," Maura countered gently. "It's going to be okay, I promise."

Jane snorted. She'd heard promises like that before. For a week after she was taken, she'd promised herself that Korsak and Frost and Frankie would find her. And for the past two years she'd promised Hoyt that she'd never be like him. It seemed she was wrong on both counts.

"I know you don't believe me, and that's okay." Maura held up her hands again, reassuring, encouraging. And, Jane thought, just a little bit devious – her hands were facing forward, so that Jane could see her palms. The very ones she'd almost stabbed scalpels through not even an hour ago. "But you need to trust me. I can help you."

Jane didn't have the energy to remind her that she didn't trust anyone anymore. She should finish what she started; better to kill Maura without the protocol than to let her walk away. Maybe Hoyt would let her mother go as long as Maura was dead. It was her only choice.

"Please," Maura said. She held out her hand, and Jane tried not to notice the way it was shaking. "Just give me the scalpel."

But something about the gesture hit home for Jane. Maura was terrified, but she wasn't leaving. Jane knew a lot about fear, about how to work through it and even how to express it when the situation called for it, and she knew that it took guts for Maura to do something when she was so deathly afraid. And it reminded Jane of the pre-Hoyt version of herself. Everyone at the station may have thought she was fearless, but there had been days when she could hardly face the world, she was so scared. But the difference between being scared and being a coward was simple: she'd never let her fear hold her back.

And now she realized what she was afraid of – not killing Maura, but of letting her help. She'd long ago given up hope that someone would save her, but maybe she could save herself. And maybe this was the way to start.

Slowly she reached forward, holding out the scalpel. She saw Maura tense when their hands almost met, Jane holding the scalpel just above Maura's hand. A long moment passed, and then Jane met Maura's eyes and dropped the scalpel onto her palm. Maura flinched and withdrew her hand, closing her fist around the handle of the scalpel.

"Thank you," Maura said genuinely.

"You can have the others, too," Jane said, her gaze flicking over to the table where she'd left the other instruments. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, as if she wanted to disappear.

Maura's smile grew, and for a startled second Jane actually expected her to hug her. Then Maura stood up and went over to the other scalpels, quickly packing them up into the bag they'd come from.

"You can use them if you want," Jane said suddenly, and Maura spun around to face her.

"What?" Maura asked in surprise.

Jane lifted up her shoulder in a shrug. "The scalpels," she clarified. "You can use them. I know you want to, and after what I've done to you I don't blame you." Jane took a deep breath and stood up, then spread her arms wide, leaving her body exposed. "Do it," she ordered. "Kill me."

For a moment Maura just stared at her, and then she let out a breath of laughter, shaking her head slightly. "I'm a healer, Jane," she said, a knowing smile playing around her lips. "I'm not a killer." As if sensing what Jane was about to say, she added, "And neither are you."

"Tell that to Hoyt," Jane said grimly.

Maura surveyed her for a moment, her gaze so piercing that she felt like she was back with Hoyt. He'd always read her better than anyone she knew, and that was part of the reason she'd believed him when he told her she was like him. But here was someone who was willing to bet their life to prove that Jane wasn't a killer.

"I think I have an idea," Maura said, but the frown on her face made it clear that it wasn't going to be something Jane wanted to hear.

"What is it?" Jane asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked over at the doctor who was standing near the table, and she had the horrible feeling that she was putting her fate in someone else's hands. That wasn't something she'd ever done, and she wasn't sure why she was doing it now.

"You're not going to like it," Maura warned.

Jane shrugged; she didn't like anything about this situation, so that was nothing new. "Tell me."

"I think," Maura said, hesitating for a minute before ploughing on, "you're going to have to kill me."

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**Thanks for the reviews last chapter, and don't forget to tell me what you think of this one. See you next time!**

**(Btdubbs, still looking for a beta for my next Rizzles fic. Hit me up if you're interested.)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hi all. Thanks for the reviews, and I hope you enjoy the chapter. Warnings for _blood and violence_, although it's not too gory because that's really not my style. Here you go.**

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**11:01 pm.**

It was just as well that Jane wasn't squeamish, because there really was a lot of blood. She remembered what Frost was like at his first murder scene, and how quickly he'd had to excuse himself because he couldn't keep his lunch down. Luckily Jane had never had that problem, although some of the more gruesome murders did have the ability to make her sick to the stomach. She remembered her first murder scene too, and how she'd been torn between revulsion and fascination. She'd loved her job, the gritty, harsh truth of it all, the thrill of putting the clues together, the satisfaction of getting the bad guy. Except now the bad guy was her.

She took a few steps away from the Medical Examiner's body, her stomach clenching at the sight of the blood now flowing from the other woman's throat. "I'm sorry," she murmured, dropping her gaze to the scalpel she was holding. A single drop of blood slid down to the tip, hanging there for a second before falling. Jane shuddered as it hit the ground, and then turned her attention to the cell phone on the table.

Hoyt had given it to her just before he'd let her go. It was programmed to send messages to only one number, and he'd told her to text him when she'd 'finished with the doctor', as he'd called it.

With a shaking hand – the same one that had suffered the distal radius fracture, as Dr Isles had pointed out – she reached for the phone and quickly typed a message.

_It's done._

Then she set the phone down and waited. This was the address Hoyt had directed her to go to, and he'd said he would meet her when she was finished. She assumed this meant that he would help her deal with the body, and, in the best case scenario, he would tell her where to find her mother. She didn't know what would happen after that – it was unlikely that Hoyt would just give up on his obsession with her – but at least her mother would be safe.

The job done, Jane sat back down on the chair, deliberately not looking at Maura's body. The blood was still flowing and she was deathly still. Jane didn't know how long it would take someone to bleed out, although she had a feeling Hoyt must have told her once. He'd tried to teach her about medicine, telling her facts that he thought would help her follow in his footsteps – the best bones to break for maximum pain, the most efficient way to deliver an injection, the layering of the muscles and the twisting of joints and the way it all fit together. He'd trained her to be a killer, and it had all led up to this moment.

After what seemed like a lifetime, there was the sound of car tires outside. Jane stiffened, tucking the scalpel into her belt and getting to her feet. She stood in the middle of the room, near Maura's body, and awaited her fate.

A minute later the door to the basement swung open and a warm glow washed down the stairs. Then the door closed and the light disappeared, and Jane felt her heart sink. A moment later Hoyt had descended the stairs and was coming toward her.

"Well, well," Hoyt said, raising his eyebrows as he took in the still form of Maura's body behind her. "My little apprentice finally earned her stripes."

The word _apprentice _made Jane flinch, but she knew she couldn't show any sign of emotion in front of Hoyt. He'd always told her that emotion was weakness, and she'd come to believe it. If she let him know she was scared, he'd see through her in a second. She had to keep the ruse going, at least until she got her chance.

"Did the good doctor put up a struggle?" Hoyt asked, coming to a stop in front of Jane. He was the same as he'd always been – cold, calculating, threatening. His eyes were dark and glittering, and he was clearly enjoying the situation. It made Jane sick.

_Keep playing your little games, Hoyt. I'll get you in the end._

"It wasn't too bad," Jane said stiffly. She shifted her position slightly, ready for fight or flight – and she knew which one she'd prefer.

"Good." Hoyt's gaze drifted over Jane's shoulder, to where Maura was still lying on the floor. "I see you didn't have to restrain her," he said pointedly, looking at Maura's hands.

"She was still out of it when I…" Jane hesitated, but she knew she had to say it. "… when I cut her throat," she finished. "It seemed like overkill to pin her down too."

"I wouldn't call it overkill," Hoyt said silkily, brushing past Jane to get a closer look at the body. "Think of it as covering your bases."

_Like you did when you kidnapped me._

"You didn't cover all your bases, Hoyt," Jane said, stepping forward so that she was right behind him. Her heart pounded in her chest and she felt physically sick, but she had to see this through. "And you forgot one very important thing."

Hoyt turned to face her, a question poised on his lips, but Jane didn't want to give him the satisfaction of asking it. In one smooth move she grabbed the scalpel from her belt and plunged it into Hoyt's chest. As she felt the blood bubble up from the wound, she answered his unspoken question with a snarl. "The good guys always win."

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**11:23 pm.**

The station was unbearably quiet, and Frankie's heartbeat was pounding in his ears. Jane was alive; Maura had been kidnapped; and it seemed like Hoyt might be active again. Frankie remembered the terror that had accompanied The Surgeon's last killing spree, and he shuddered to think what would happen this time. The fallout from Jane's disappearance had put a strain on everyone at BPD as they tried to both locate Jane and placate the public. The citizens of Boston had started to lose faith in those who had sworn to protect them, and it had taken a long time for those wounds to heal. If the media got wind of this and spread the story that The Surgeon was back, they wouldn't be able to stop the backlash. They'd just have to duck and cover and hope for the best.

"Anything?" Korsak asked, breaking the long silence. Frost paused in the doorway, on his way in after having been back to the scene where they found Maura's car, just in case they'd missed anything.

"Nothing," Frost said gloomily, shrugging off his jacket and sinking into his chair. "Did you guys find anything in Jane's records?"

"No," Korsak admitted. Since they'd found Jane's prints at the scene they'd been looking through her records, everything they'd kept on file from when she disappeared – the last known place she was seen, her financials, her schedule, anything that might give them an indication of where she might be now. And so far they hadn't found a thing.

"They've finished going through Maura's car," Frankie announced a minute later. They'd brought the car in for processing, but it didn't seem to have helped. There was no blood in it, no damage to it, no sign that it had been involved in a crime at all. Frankie sighed, pushing his phone away. "They didn't find anything either."

Korsak leaned back in his chair, a cup of coffee in his hands and a look of desolation on his face. For a brief shining moment it had seemed like they might have Jane back, but they were no closer to finding her than they were two years ago. Knowing Jane was alive didn't help them find her. And if they didn't get her back tonight, it would be like losing her all over again.

"We have to keep looking," Korsak said, and nobody argued with him; there was no doubt in any of their minds that they would keep searching no matter what it took. Maura was still missing, and they weren't going to let Hoyt get away with this. "Okay," he said, finishing his coffee and tossing the cup into the trash. "Frost, you stay on Jane's trail. Pick up where we left off two years ago, see what you can find." When the younger detective nodded, the sergeant turned to Frankie and said, "Rizzoli, you see if you can track down Maura. Figure out if there's anything out of the ordinary from the last few days."

"Right," Frankie said, swinging his chair around so that he was facing his computer again. As he started typing, he glanced over at Korsak. "What are you gonna be doing, boss?"

"I'll look into Hoyt's files," Korsak responded, but he didn't sound hopeful. They were grasping at straws, and they all knew it. "Maybe we can find something they missed last time."

For a second there was silence as they all set about their tasks, and then there was a clatter of keys and an exclamation of surprise.

"I don't think we have to," Frost said. He was out of his seat before Frankie even had time to register what was happening. "I know where Jane is."

Korsak stared at him, dumbstruck. "How on earth did -"

"Save my sister now," Frankie interrupted, following Frost out the door and pulling Korsak along with them, "ask questions later."

But Frankie couldn't help but think that they might not have time to do either.

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**11:25 pm.**

Hoyt toppled backwards with a curse on his lips and murder in his eyes. Jane fell on top of him, still holding the scalpel. Despite the medical training he'd given her, she'd missed the mark she was aiming for; she'd hoped one hit would be enough, but it was becoming clear that it wouldn't be. Hoyt wasn't dying yet; he was hurt, but he wasn't fatally wounded. She had to pull the scalpel out.

Gritting her teeth, she wrapped both hands around the scalpel and pulled upwards. Hoyt was so surprised that he didn't react quickly enough, and in a split second the scalpel was out and the wound was bleeding more than before. With a shuddering cough Hoyt tried to roll to the side, but Jane slammed his shoulder back against the ground. She was pinning him down, like she'd pinned Maura earlier, only this time her intent was clear. She really wanted to kill this son of a bitch. But something stopped her, a flash of fear in Hoyt's eyes that left her stunned, and that split second of hesitation was enough to give Hoyt the upper hand.

He bucked upwards, throwing Jane off-balance, and then he lunged forward and pushed her off him entirely. Jane was flung backwards, hitting the ground with a thud that knocked the wind out of her, and the scalpel flew from her hand. She watched it skid across the floor, but then her attention was caught again by Hoyt. He crawled toward her, injured but showing no signs of stopping. The only thing Jane had going for her was that Hoyt was unarmed – for now.

"You've lost, Janie," Hoyt said as he straddled her, pinning her arms down above her head like he had the first night he'd taken her.

A familiar paralyzing fear shot through Jane as she stared into his cold, hard eyes. She couldn't stop the whimper that slipped from between her gritted teeth, and she turned her head to the side, trying to convince herself that this wasn't real, that he hadn't won this time. Had she come so far just to fall short now?

"Actually," said a soft voice from behind Hoyt, causing him to jerk his head around and look over his shoulder in growing horror, "_you've_ lost, Hoyt."

Before Jane could react Hoyt was falling sideways, a scalpel sticking out the side of his neck and his eyes already starting to glaze over. "I told you," Jane said as she scrambled to her feet, wanting to be as far away from him as possible but knowing she needed to witness his final moments, "the good guys always win."

Hoyt took one last gasping breath, a tremor racked his entire body, and then he was still. Jane stayed where she was, frozen to the spot, and finally dragged her gaze away from Hoyt's body. Maura was standing on the other side of him, looking as shocked as Jane felt. They shared a look, and then Maura said quietly, "I guess this makes you one of the good guys then, Jane."

"You might be jumping the gun a bit there," Jane said, but a broken laugh escaped her lips anyway. It was over; Hoyt was dead. She was _free_.

Just as Maura started to respond, the door burst open and the room was flooded with light. An achingly familiar voice broke through the sudden startled silence, filling Jane with a wave of relief despite the harshness of the words. "Boston police," Korsak shouted, and Jane could feel his gun trained on her. "Get on your knees and put your hands on your head."

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**R&amp;R. Only two chapters left. See you guys soon.**


	9. Chapter 9

**All right, here we are. This is the last full chapter - the final one will be an epilogue, just to wrap things up a bit. But this is where everything happens. Also just a reminder that these characters have been through a lot and they're all in shock, so if you feel like someone isn't acting the way they should just remember what they've been through and it should make more sense. Thank you to everyone who's followed, favorite, and most importantly reviewed; your support means a lot. I have a quick announcement that I'll put after the chapter, since you're probably eager to get to it.**

**So, here you go. Enjoy!**

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**11:28 pm.**

Jane hadn't been on this side of the system before, and even after everything that had happened today it was a singularly bizarre experience. She sank to her knees and put her hands on her head, lowering her gaze to the floor, and beside her Maura held her hands up to show that she was unarmed too, having dropped the scalpel the second the cavalry burst in. For a wild moment she thought Korsak was going to shoot anyway, and part of her almost wanted it. But there were no shots, no further orders. Just a heavy silence.

"Maura?" Frost said suddenly, and Jane glanced up to see that all three of them were there – Korsak in the lead, Frankie and Frost backing him up. Frankie wasn't in uniform, and Jane felt a burst of pride; he must have made Detective.

The doctor shivered, lowering her hands as they realized that she was one of them, and then she wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm okay," she said quickly. Her voice was shaky but she sounded sure of herself. "I'm okay."

Frankie's eyes darted around the room, quickly taking everything in. He lowered his gun, and then inclined his head to indicate Hoyt's bloody form a few feet away from Maura. "Is he -"

"He's dead," Maura said shakily, nodding slightly as if to reassure herself of the truth of her statement. Frankie's gaze fell to the floor by Maura's feet, and he was startled to see a bloodstained scalpel in front of her. Maura followed his gaze and then dipped her head infinitesimally, confirming his hunch.

He turned away, feeling a wave of disappointment and regret. Maura had never been a fighter; while they were out on the streets she was safely in the labs. She wasn't made for combat – heck, even confrontation made her uncomfortable. Hoyt may have been the worst of the worst, but as far as Frankie knew Maura had never taken a life before. He didn't like to think about how much healing she'd have to do after this.

"Jane," Korsak said after a moment, as the woman kneeling on the floor finally looked up, her hair falling away from her eyes and revealing a dirt-stained, washed-out face. But it was the emptiness in her eyes that hit home for him, and he almost dropped his gun in surprise. It was Jane all right, but not as he remembered her; this was a sad parody of the woman he'd worked with, the empty shell of someone they had all admired.

Before he could make a move toward her, Frankie had darted forward. He dropped to his knees beside her, staring at her face in astonishment for a second before wrapping his arms around her. Korsak felt his heart swell, but the reunion wasn't as joyful as they'd hoped. Jane's whole body tensed; she didn't move, not even to take her hands away from her head, and she looked like she wanted to disappear.

After a moment Frankie seemed to sense her reluctance, and he pulled away. He tried to meet her eyes but she wouldn't look at him, so he gently grabbed both her hands and brought them away from her head, holding her hands in his own like he'd done a thousand times before. He squeezed gently, but Jane still didn't react. That's when he noticed the scars – on her wrists and her palms, even a faint one on her throat.

"Oh god, Janie," he murmured, wanting to wrap her up in a hug, "what did he do to you?"

Jane just wordlessly shook her head, as if the horrors she'd experienced were too awful to even verbalize.

"And what'd he do to you, Maura?" Frost asked, his gaze shifting from the detective on the ground to the doctor standing by Hoyt's body.

Maura blinked in surprise, not sure what he was talking about, and then her hand drifted to her throat. When she pulled it away her hand was smeared with blood. She glanced over at Jane, who hesitated and then nodded slightly, not quite meeting her eyes but not seeming as distant as she had before.

"Actually," Maura said, wiping the blood off on her dress (and then cursing herself because she'd only worn this once and there was no way even her drycleaner would be able to get these stains out), "that wasn't Hoyt. That was…" She paused, swallowed, and finished, "It was Jane."  
A heartbreaking silence fell over the room, and Maura suddenly wished she hadn't spoken. Frankie let go of Jane, his face twisting up in confusion and pain, and then he grabbed both her shoulders and tried to get her to meet his eyes.

"Is that true?" he all but whispered, his voice so low that the others almost couldn't hear. "Did you do that?"

Jane opened her mouth to say something, but the words seemed to get stuck in her throat. She closed her eyes for a moment as if she was steeling herself, and then she nodded.

"Oh god," Frankie said in a strangled whisper.

Jane felt his hands tighten on her shoulders, and she thought for a moment that he might shake her, try to get her to speak, to confess, to say _something_.

"It was my idea," Maura spoke up, and all eyes turned to her.

"What?" Frankie said, startled. He looked from Jane to Maura and back again, and then frowned. "Maura, what the hell happened down here?"

When Maura didn't answer, Frankie turned back to Jane. He was about to speak, but even he didn't know what he wanted to say. He'd imagined this moment a thousand times, but now that he was finally face-to-face with his sister he couldn't think of a single thing to say. He surveyed her quickly, taking in every half-forgotten feature, trying to assess how bad she was. She seemed thinner than she had been, and dirtier, and almost… broken.

Korsak cleared his throat, realizing that someone had to take control. "We should get some paramedics here," he said, jerking his head toward Maura. She was holding a hand to her throat, and the bleeding was slowing; it didn't look like it would be fatal, but he didn't want to take any chances. Then he turned his attention to Jane, and for the first time in his career he had no idea what to do.

If Jane had really attacked Maura, then they should arrest her. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. To his great relief, Maura chimed in then.

"She's not going to hurt us," Maura said, looking down at Jane. "She helped."

"Helped?" Frost echoed incredulously, raising his eyebrows. His gaze fell on Maura's throat, and she frowned.

"We had to make Hoyt believe I was dead," Maura explained, her voice growing stronger with each word. "I asked Jane to… to help. She didn't hit anything vital; we just needed enough blood for it to be believable."

Jane lowered her head again, unwilling to meet the eyes of her former colleagues. She couldn't find a single scrap of courage or a single word to say. She knew they were waiting for her to say something, to explain, to apologize, but she couldn't find the words. Then, suddenly, she remembered why she was here.

"Ma," she croaked, her voice hoarse with emotion. The others all turned to her and she shrank from their gaze, but she needed to say this. She looked at Frankie, not quite meeting his eyes – she wasn't ready for that yet. "He has her," she said, and then she watched Frankie crumble. He was no longer a homicide detective; he was a kid terrified of losing his mother. Jane turned her gaze onto Korsak; he was her last chance. "Hoyt has Ma. I don't know where."

Korsak paled, but unlike Frankie he held himself together. "Think, Jane," he said, something he'd told her a hundred times during their time on the team together. It had been his way of reminding her not to rush into danger, to let her head rule her heart for once. "Where would he have taken her?"

She'd almost forgotten about it in the overwhelming rush of stimuli she'd been flattened by when the others came in, but now Jane remembered. "The book," she mumbled, her gaze dropping to her hands. When no one spoke, she raised her eyes again, realizing nobody had understood her. She cleared her throat. "There's a black book that H- that he wrote everything down in. That's gotta say where she is."

Korsak nodded, encouraging. "Where does he keep the book, Jane?"

She squinted slightly, and he wondered again just what she'd been through and what the lasting damage would be. "In his car," she said finally. Her shoulders were slumping, as if a weight had been lifted off them, but her eyes were still troubled. "That's why we… why we did this. We had to get the book."

"We'll find her," Korsak promised, signalling to Frost. The younger detective nodded, pulling out his cell phone and calling the officers they had watching the entrances. He walked away to make the call, and silence fell over the rest of the group. When Frost came back he met Korsak's eyes and nodded, and then they waited.

Frankie started to speak, but cut himself off. He was torn between his desire to stay with Jane and the urge to help with the search for his mother, but eventually the former won out. It was enough to keep him here, although not enough to stop him from tapping his fingers against his thigh as they waited to hear back from the uniforms. He fell silent; all he could do was wait.

Within a few minutes the paramedics arrived, and Korsak, Frost, and Frankie stood back to let them examine the girls.

Frankie was watching Jane with a pained expression, unable to believe that the broken woman in front of them was his sister. "What happened to her, Korsak?" he asked, barely able to force the words out. For the first time since she'd gone missing he thought that it might have been better if she'd been killed after all. That way she wouldn't have had to endure whatever hell this psychopath had put her through.

"We may never know," Korsak said, watching Jane with a mixture of sadness and relief. One of the paramedics came up to him then and delivered the verdict – they were both going to be okay. Jane would need surgery to correct an old injury, and Maura had needed a couple of stitches, but they were both going to be fine. Physically, at least.

"What's going to happen now?" Frost asked, still watching the girls as the paramedics finished up.

"We'll take them both back to the station and get statements," Korsak replied absently.

"That's not what I meant." Frost was still watching Jane and Maura, his protective instincts kicking in; with Hoyt dead Frost knew he didn't have to hunt down the monster that had hurt his friends, so now all he could do was help them heal.

"I know what you meant." Korsak sighed, finally turning his gaze away from the girls. "I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what Hoyt did to her, or how long it will take her to heal."

"What if she can't come back from this?" Frankie asked, although he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"It's Jane," Korsak said simply. "She'll be okay." But the look in his eyes said he didn't quite believe his own words. He cleared his throat, glancing sideways at Frost as he prepared to deliver an uncharacteristic compliment. "Good job finding the address, by the way," he said, and the young detective's eyes widened as he registered the sincerity in his superior's voice.

"It wasn't that hard," Frost mumbled, slightly embarrassed. "I just had to know what to look for. I'd already tried all of Hoyt's known aliases and hadn't got a hit, but then I tried something different – anagrams. It took a while, but eventually I came up with a place rented recently by a Mr Henry Deduboto."

Frankie blinked, confused, but Korsak was quicker on the uptake. "Ted Bundy," he said, the realization sinking in. Sometimes he forgot just how twisted Hoyt really was.

"How'd you even come up with that idea?" Frankie asked. "Using anagrams?"

Frost turned his gaze back to where Jane was sitting, and a sad kind of smile crept across his face. "I tried to think like the best partner I've ever worked with," he said, and he didn't need to say any more.

They stayed silent for a few minutes, until finally the paramedics started to depart. Frankie started to go over to Jane – he never wanted to let her out of his sight again – but stopped when he saw Maura approach her. Maura sat down on the step beside Jane, and they shared a look. Then, slowly, Maura reached out and took one of Jane's hands in both of hers. Frankie stared, dumbstruck; Jane had been completely resistant when he'd hugged her, but she was accepting Maura's touch. He shared a look with Korsak, who was equally stunned.

They watched as Maura leaned over and said something to Jane, whose lips twisted into something that almost passed for a smile. Frankie felt some of the tightness in his chest lessen. Jane wasn't alone; maybe she'd be okay.

"You did well," Maura murmured, still holding Jane's hands. "Without you, I'd probably be dead."

"Without me you wouldn't have been here," Jane pointed out. She looked down at their hands, wanting to pull away but not quite being able to do it. She felt a strange sense of closeness with Maura; after what they'd been through it was natural for them to form a bond, although she had expected Maura to turn on her the second the others arrived. She wouldn't have blamed her if she had.

"You were trying to save your mother," Maura said, squeezing her hand slightly. "No one can blame you for that."

"I'm sure the jury will." Jane closed her eyes, fighting off a wave of exhaustion. Today had been too full of emotion for her liking, and now the adrenalin was starting to fade and she was realizing that she needed rest. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd slept.

Maura didn't respond for a moment. When she did, her voice was gentle, sympathetic, kind – all the things Hoyt wasn't. "You could have killed me, Jane," she said. "But you didn't. I'm not going to forget that."

Jane opened her mouth to say something, but no words came. Instead she squeezed Maura's hand, the best she could do, and Maura offered her a smile. Neither of them would forget anything about this night.

Suddenly someone said her name, and Jane was so unused to hearing it that she flinched.

"It's okay," Korsak said as he approached, an apology written all over his face. Jane ducked her head, embarrassed for her old partner to see her so broken. "We just got word that they found your mother."

"Is she -" Jane started, her breath catching in her throat.

"She's a little shaken up, but she's fine," Korsak assured her quickly, and Jane felt so dizzy with relief that if she hadn't been sitting down she might have actually fainted. "They're taking her to the station."

Jane breathed out slowly, trying to slow her racing mind and heartbeat, though both were proving difficult. "So what do we do now?"

"We get the hell out of here," Korsak said, and Jane let out a shaky laugh. "Come on," he said, cautiously reaching out and starting to help her to her feet. Maura supported her too, and between them they managed to steady her. Then Korsak said the words that Jane had thought she'd never hear again. "Let's get you home."

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**As always, please let me know your thoughts (in a polite, constructive way, if you please).**

**Also, I'm still in the process of writing another Rizzoli &amp; Isles fic, so would any of you be interested in it? If so, I can post either a synopsis or a little sneak peek at the end of next chapter. Let me know if you'd be up for that, and I'll see you all next time.**

**Thanks again, everyone.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Annnd, here we are. The end of my very first Rizzoli &amp; Isles story. Thanks for all the reviews, and I hope you all enjoy the final chapter. Also to anyone out there reading this and debating whether to review: please do. Even if it's months or years after I've finished updating, I'll still get an alert and I'll appreciate the feedback. And that's about it. Here you go, guys.**

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**12:01 pm.**

Life in a psychiatric hospital didn't suit Jane, and neither did the plain white patient uniform they were all required to wear. But when Maura went to visit her a month after Hoyt's death, Jane seemed to be doing okay. She was sitting in the visitors area, her hands resting on the table in front of her. The left hand was still bandaged after the surgery, and the sleeves of the uniform covered the scars on her wrists. But Maura knew they were there, and the thought made her unbearably sad.

"Hi," she said softly as she approached.

Jane watched her cautiously, more animated than she had been the last time Maura saw her but still not back to normal. "Hey," she replied, her voice friendly enough, but she tensed as Maura sat down.

Maura smiled gently, and Jane laughed at her own jumpiness. "Sorry," she said, forcing herself to relax. "Force of habit."

"How have you been?" Maura asked, trying her best to see Jane as a person and not as a patient. She'd been getting updates on Jane from her doctors here, but she hadn't seen her since the night they'd killed Hoyt. In exchange for her testimony against Hoyt, Jane had avoided any prison charges – but she had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, one of the best in the state, and nobody was sure when she'd be released. Maura had even heard Frost wondering whether Jane would ever leave, but Frankie and Korsak were hopeful.

Jane spread her arms wide, reminding them of where they were. Then she shrugged. "I've been okay," she said, and to her surprise she meant it. She was undergoing rigorous treatment for her PTSD, and so far it seemed to be helping. She still had a long road ahead of her, but the hospital was a safe place for her to recover. And to learn to live with what she'd done, and what had been done to her.

"That's good." Maura's gaze drifted down to the table, and she found herself wondering what to say. She knew that Frankie and Mrs Rizzoli had already visited Jane, and that Korsak and Frost would be by tomorrow, and despite all they'd been through Maura felt like maybe she didn't have a right to be here. She and Jane had gone through something intense, but she hadn't known her for years like the others. In all honesty, she wasn't sure why she'd even come here.

"You didn't have to visit me." Jane watched Maura, picking up on how uncomfortable the doctor was. She'd been working on her people skills while she was here; everything Hoyt had done to her had skewed her view of the world, making it hard to interact with others, but she was getting some of her old charisma back. And she was starting to let herself believe that not everyone was out to hurt her.

"I know I didn't," Maura said simply. "But I wanted to."

Unexpectedly, this made Jane smile. She'd thought that Maura would want nothing to do with her after what happened, but here she was. "Well, thank you," Jane said gruffly, not wanting to show too much emotion – she wasn't ready for that yet – but needing to show that she was grateful.

"How are you finding the treatment so far?" Maura asked, wanting to keep the conversation going. She didn't want to put too much pressure on Jane to talk, but she didn't want her to close off again either.

"It's intense," Jane said with a snort. That was putting it lightly. "But I think it's working."

"I'm glad you chose to get help," Maura said, and she saw Jane wince slightly at the word _help_, as if she still wasn't used to it.

"It was either that or prison," Jane reminded her, "and orange is _not_ my color."

Maura laughed, but her thoughts were turning to more serious topics. "You still made a choice," she said, and they both understood the significance of her words. Back in the basement, Jane had made the choice not to kill her; Maura still wasn't quite brave enough to ask her whether she regretted her choice, but she was glad of it all the same.

"It wasn't really a choice," Jane said. She lowered her gaze to her hands, turning them over so she could see the faint marks left by the scalpels Hoyt had shoved into them. "I wasn't what he thought I was," she said softly, and Maura wasn't sure if she was talking to her or talking to herself. "I wasn't like him after all."

"You're a good person, Jane," Maura said, and the other woman jerked her head up in surprise. She looked like she was about to object, but then Jane just shrugged again.

She paused, and then said, "Well I'm not a serial killer at least, so that's a good place to start."

They shared a smile, but Jane's thoughts were drifting. She'd been a cop for so many years that she didn't know who she was outside of the force. She'd been a detective, and then she'd been Hoyt's prisoner, and now she was… something. She didn't know if she'd ever go back to being a cop, even if they did finally allow her to once she'd completed her treatment. She needed to figure out who she was, sans gun and scalpel and everything she'd ever hidden behind. She was just Jane now, and she needed to make peace with that.

"There's a long way to go," Maura agreed gently. She wanted to say something encouraging, but she didn't want to seem condescending or pitying. So instead she just smiled again. Jane seemed to be struggling with herself, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet, almost strangled by emotion.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you," she said, still looking at the table. "And I'm sorry for what I… what I tried to do."

Maura couldn't quite bring herself to say that it was okay or that she forgave her, but it meant a lot that Jane was apologizing. "Thank you," she said, and something passed between them, some kind of silent understanding. Whatever happened in the basement was behind them, and they just had to move forward. "You know," she went on, trying to draw Jane back into the conversation before she fell into one of the bouts of self-loathing that the doctors had said she was prone to, "from what Frankie and Frost and Korsak have told me, I think you and I would have worked well together."

"Are you kidding me?" Jane asked, so startled that she glanced up and met Maura's eyes. Her gaze held her there, and she dialled down her response. "We would have been at each other's throats all day."

"Maybe," Maura laughed, "but in another lifetime I think we could have been friends."

Jane paused, her gaze searching Maura's face, and then she asked, "What about in this one?"

Maura considered her answer, and then she smiled. "We'll see," she said, the best answer she could give. And for now, it was enough.

Maybe this lifetime wasn't the way they'd imagined it, and maybe they'd never go back to the way things were. And maybe that was okay. Hoyt was dead, Jane was free, and Maura was still alive. They had a long road of recovery ahead of them, but this seemed like the perfect place to start.

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X

**And that's it. What'd you think?**

**A few of you showed interest in my next story, so here's a rough synopsis:**

**_When a new serial killer known as The Doctor begins terrorizing Boston, it's up to BPD to put a stop to it. But the killer's MO hits too close to home, and the evidence left behind at the crime scenes seems to be a deliberate message for one of the team. The case takes an even more personal turn when one of their own confesses a deadly secret, causing the investigation itself to be called into question. Has the team really found the killer or is there more to the story? Can they uncover the truth in time? Find out in "the science of murder", a multi-chapter drama/suspense story coming out soon._**

**See you all there!**


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